


Snowbound

by Rynfinity



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Blindness, Hurt/Comfort, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Light Angst, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:46:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 49,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An embarrassingly long time ago, so long ago that her/his/their original tumblr is deactivated, a lovely thorki fan posted <a href="http://pohjanneito.tumblr.com/post/103992424732/thorki-want">this prompt</a>.</p><p>I've been battling it ever since.  It's over 22k words to date and even now I'm hesitant to start posting.  All I can hope is that you think I'm doing a better job with this than I do!</p><p>~~o~~</p><p>
  <i>The more time he spends considering what lies ahead, the less attractive his impending adventure becomes.  After all, if he can’t wipe out a skirmish or enjoy the exotic pleasures another realm has to offer, he might as well save himself the effort and just stay home.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

“Wait, hear me out. You are still young, like it or not, and hot-blooded.” Frigga smoothes Thor’s heavy leather cloak – his favorite, the one he wears hunting in all but the very warmest weather – across the breadth of his chest and up over his shoulders.

“You’ve been speaking for the better part of an hour,” he counters. “I’m sure I’ve heard plenty already.” It’s a struggle not to huff angrily and twist away; being the subject of such close parental scrutiny inevitably sets his teeth on edge, and to top it all off he’s not in the best of moods this morning.

“Alas,” his mother says, “while you might like to be done with this conversation, I’ve a little bit more to tell you. It’s important, too; you would be wise to take heed.” She studies his face, the corners of her mouth turning up just a little. He wrinkles his nose at her. “A good king knows everything he can about his neighbors,” she points out, “far more than the weakest parts of their armor or the way they wield their weapons. We have not always been at such odds with the people of Jotunheim.” She fusses with the high sides of his collar. “And,” she adds with one last firm tug, “Norns willing, a day will dawn when Aes and Jotnar alike no longer remember what it means to be at war. Where will you be then, at the dawn of a new age of cooperation and compromise, if the full extent of your _diplomatic understanding_ begins and ends at how best to leave all of Jotunheim dead?”

Thor swallows down his irritation and leans in to kiss Frigga’s forehead. If nothing else he’s finally becoming much more adept at choosing his battles, at recognizing the times when it’s simply pointless to take on his mother. “I will do my best not to kill anything that speaks this time,” he concedes, gamely pushing past his own annoyance. “Unless, of course, the thing in question is trying to kill me first.” He straightens up and smiles down at her. “At which point,” he half-teases, “I will do whatever I must.”

Frigga rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “You are traveling to the frozen realm to study,” she reminds him. “To learn and grow, not to fight. Never, ever forget that, my son. I know you can do this. Go on now; make an old woman proud.”

“I’ll do my best.” Thor forces himself to grin. “And you are far from old.” He can’t expect anyone (least of all, his mother) to understand how he feels, and it doesn’t matter anyway. This is his father’s edict. There’s simply no getting out of going and no winning this particular argument. Norns know, he’s tried. His patience is wholly exhausted. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he tells Frigga – he can only stay calm for so long; it’s time to make a graceful exit, before he loses his hard-won composure and spouts something regrettable - “The hour grows late. I must return to my chambers and collect the last of my things.”

She gives his arms a last fond squeeze, her fingers pressing into the sleeves of his leather jerkin just above the elbows. “I have something for you. Here,” she instructs, earnestly, “promise me you will always carry this with you.” He frowns as his mother holds out a necklace, a tiny silver-colored amulet dangling from a length of braided leather cord.

Thor bows his head and lets her place the thing around his neck. She tucks it behind the ties securing his cloak and then into the front of his tunic, where it settles – briefly cold, and heavier than it looks to be – into the hollow at the top of his sternum. He clears his throat. “Will this keep me safe?” Her sudden, unexpected seriousness has chipped away at his confidence, leaving him tense and uncomfortable.

“No,” she says with a wry smile. “Only you can do that. But it will make your poor mother happy.”

~

As he crams the last few things into his pack, Thor has to remind himself – sternly, repeatedly - that he’s going to be exploring and not invading. While he does need sufficient arms to hunt – daggers for his boot sheaths, his good knife, and a staff, a solid one that readily does double duty as a walking stick – he knows his main focus should be on his own survival: warm, waterproof outer garments; a compact tent for shelter against Jotunheim’s icy gusts and windblown snow; a small pot for cooking and a larger one for boiling water. A leather pouch full of healing stones, and a parchment-wrapped supply of slices dried from Idunn’s finest apples. In amongst his other supplies he stuffs a few more rolled-up bits of clothing… a second winter tunic and set of leggings, in case the ones he’s wearing get wet or damaged. Last and by no means least, at the very top of his pack where they’ll be readily available, Thor tucks a pair of slitted goggles meant to shield his eyes from the glare.

Jotunheim gets very little sun, especially in comparison to Asgard. However when one does happen to encounter the rare cloudless day, he’s told, the unbroken expanse of reflective snow poses a real threat. One of the royal advisors and three soldiers have (separately) taken special pains to warn him: trivial as it might sound, sun-damaged eyes - snow blindness - invariably mean confusion, pain, and helplessness. In the Jotun wilderness, any one of these alone poses a dangerous problem. Taken collectively, they’re enough to threaten a man’s life. And it does make sense; to successfully navigate the realm’s dangers, he has to be able to see them.

The more time he spends considering what lies ahead, the less attractive his impending adventure becomes. After all, if he can’t wipe out a skirmish or enjoy the exotic pleasures another realm has to offer, he might as well save himself the effort and just stay home. There’s no point in saying as much to his mother, though; even he understands that such thinking - as sensible as it might otherwise seem – is unbecoming of a future king.

Consequently, once his rucksack is just short of overfull and his staff is strapped tightly into place, there isn’t any point in dawdling further. Thor allows himself a last quick look around his chambers. He makes a face at his own reflection in the large mirror alongside his wardrobe and then steps out into the corridor; it’s time to make his rounds and say his goodbyes. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Which doesn’t help; neither does pulling the heavy doors closed behind him.

His first stop is Odin’s private study. Given that the three of them – Thor and his parents - had taken their morning meal together earlier, he knows a brief visit will suffice. As he exchanges pointless pleasantries with his father Thor takes one last nakedly envious look around the tapestry-hung, high-ceilinged room - at the shelves heavy with books, the sideboard groaning with wine and dried fruits, cheeses, and mead, the smoking torches, and the enormous, crackling fire – and wonders how many frigid, miserable months will have passed before he once again terms himself genuinely warm.

That, or considers himself _home_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every journey beings with a farewell. If you're fortunate, it's a fond one.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

While he does briefly consider it, Thor finds he can’t leave Asgard without making one last visit to the palace training grounds. He’s spent what feels like his entire life here, day after day, since he was barely old enough to grip the smallest of knives. He’s worked with a golem to build speed and strategized with (better termed, more often than not, _beating the shit out of_ ) his friends. Which is only fair; they do their best to return his favors in kind.

Consequently, Thor knows not saying goodbye really isn’t an option. He crests the hill at the edge of the yard, pack slung over one shoulder, and starts down. Sure enough, three of his favorite people in all the Nine are hard at play. Sif and Hogun have paired off and are running drills, their hands and staves moving almost too fast for even his trained eyes to follow. The two of them are little more than a grunting, thudding blur as they zigzag back and forth across the ring in a cloud of heavy dust with Fandral egging them on.

They’ve clearly been at it for some time, too. Sif’s hair drips sweat and Hogan’s face is streaked with dirt. The moment Hogun spots Thor they stop and race to the rail to bid him a boisterous, sweaty farewell. Judging by the looks of it, they’ve had a good bout… their feet and legs are absolutely filthy. Both sport bruises all up and down their arms, and Hogun’s knuckles are bleeding. “My friend,” Fandral says, clapping Thor on the shoulder as he joins the rest of them at ringside. “Whatever brings you here, so dressed and so laden? Tell me you’re not headed off to begin your so-called _fabulous journey_.”

“I could,” Thor counters, laughing at Fandral’s waggling eyebrows, “but we all know I’d be lying. And we can’t have that, now, can we?” He knows his friends are itching to join him. They’re bored, and jealous. Sadly, he has no need of them… not on this particular quest, anyway. He might be able to justify bringing along a scholar or two, but studious his best friends are not. At least not when it comes to _peacemaking and gentle diplomacy_ ; in times of war they are all but flawless, and when he is king Thor knows Sif will make a fine commander.

Even if he were to overlook the whole _goals of this trip_ business and offer any one (or more) of them the chance to accompany him, Thor can’t ignore one undisputable fact: his mother would have his head. That, and it’s the wrong thing to do. Whether or not his friends could somehow slip past Frigga, not to mention Heimdall, they’re needed here. Thor could be gone a year or more, and while he’s away others – his parents, sure, but his friends as well - will have new burdens to shoulder and new duties to carry out. There’s also the safety of the realm to consider. The Allfather would certainly cut Thor’s trip short should war threaten… but situations can change with little warning and Thor can’t leave Asgard anything short of well-defended.

Sif’s bright laughter pulls him back to the present. “Bring us the skull of a- of an _ice beast_. Ouch! What?” She mock-glares at Fandral and swats away the arm he’d just used to elbow her in the side. Fandral and Hogun both grin ear-to-ear. “You two,” she huffs. “Ymir’s balls. What did you think I was going to say?”

“Oh no,” Fandral teases. “You won’t trick that out of me. I of all people know how important it is to gave a _lady_ leave to keep her secrets.” She flips her staff up; he only just ducks beneath its arc. “And Thor? Whatever you opt to fetch Lady Sif, I’ll be happy if you simply bring me a Jotun maiden. A living maiden, too, one who knows a gentleman when she sees one.”

Thor forces out a hearty laugh, despite how he’s not in the mood for idle chatter. Not anymore. He’s sick to death of pretending all is well and just wants to be underway. “And if I were to find such a thing,” he asks Fandral, “what makes you think I would not claim it for my own?”

“Only that I’m the one person here who possesses the skills to keep _her_ happy,” Fandral counters. “And if what you told us last week – and last month, and the month before that – is accurate and the purpose of this visit truly is international diplomacy, would those skills not be crucial?”

Sif and Hogun both laugh. They’re wasting time. Stalling. Dragging this out, when Thor is itching to leave. “Farewell, my friends,” he tells the three of them, not even bothering to counter Fandral’s jab. The upcoming trip is weighing heavily upon him, so much so that he simply isn’t able to stomach any more empty posturing or pointless banter. “And do me a favor: please be sure to tell Volstagg he’s not to empty the palace stores while I’m gone.”

“That,” Fandral warns him, “is going to cost you _two_ Jotun maidens.”

“I’m not certain there _are_ Jotun maidens,” Thor hears Sif telling Fandral as he climbs up the closest steps and onto the royal promenade. He decides it’s most prudent to ignore her.

~

Only Frigga accompanies Thor on what turns to be a very glum, tense, final-feeling walk – while he could have opted for riding out to the gatekeeper’s post instead, now that he’s away from his friends his courage is starting to flag (and with it his sense of urgency) - along the rainbow bridge leading out to the observatory. “When do you think I will see you again? Soon, I hope” he tries as they cross the bridge’s midpoint, where they’re well out of hearing range of both the palace itself and of Heimdall as long as they keep their voices down. “Perhaps by midsummer?”

“You heard your father,” she chides him, albeit gently. His heart sinks a little. “I really can’t predict it. But I can tell you this: when the time is right, you will know.”

They hug one another tightly as Heimdall slips the sword into its socket. “There are places in the northern reaches the Bifrost cannot safely go,” Frigga reminds Thor quietly. Just last night Odin had told him much the same; out in the glacial fields, where the ice is unstable, the Bifrost’s concentrated force could trigger a dangerous collapse or avalanche. “Do your best to stay south of the ridge,” she advises. “And do take care, my son.”

“I will, mother,” he assures her, his face pressed against the warmth of her shoulder. “And you as well.”

They pull apart. Thor plants a last kiss on Frigga’s brow, hefts his bag, and steps into the portal. Just as he gets his bearings and stops tumbling head-over-heels, Asgard as he knows it disappears in a riot of multicolored light.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor is not impressed with Winter Wonderland.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

This is far from his first journey via Bifrost, and Thor considers himself amply prepared. He isn’t. Landing is a shock, to the point that he can’t help himself; he stumbles and drops onto all fours, all the while cursing as colorfully and loudly as he can (which is _very_ ). Once he recovers a little he shifts to a one-handed crouch, shading his eyes with the other hand and squinting against the constant onslaught of wind-whipped snow. The air is so sharply cold that it confuses his skin; his mind registers the frigid wind as hot, and within the space of half a second his face is burning.

Even through the heavy fabric of his tunic, which he yanks quickly up to cover his mouth and nose, Thor struggles to draw breath. His lungs burn; his larynx spasms. When his eyes water, frozen tears streak his cheeks.

His brain may know better, but his body has worked itself into a panic. It wholly expects to die here.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he orders himself, aloud. It’s not like there’s anyone – or anything – here to hear him. It works: the words give him a burst of energy. He scrambles to his feet and heads out on his mission as soon as he gets his bearings; even so, it’s a good ten minutes after he first starts to really move – to march powerfully along, pistoning his arms and working the big muscles of his legs against the shifting snow – that Thor finally begins to thaw enough that he’s no longer stiff and shaking.

After the better part of an hour’s march he’s finally warmed up. Another hour or so in, he relaxes a little; he’s reached the point where he can afford to stop for a minute or two without feeling as though he’s in immediate danger of perishing. Thor leans into the wind and takes – tries to take, at least - a long look around, under the theory that it’s wisest to survey his surroundings while there’s still enough light in the sky to see them. Which there won’t be for long; not only had he left Asgard well past midday, but the weather here in Jotunheim has been nothing short of stormy.

Since he landed he’s faced steady snow, heavier at times than he’s ever seen it, with more than enough wind to keep the swirling, icy-white flakes in constant motion. He hasn’t been here more than a few hours and already the muscles in his face ache with the strain of endless squinting.

Ultimately, though, all he sees around him is- snow. Snow, snow, and more snow. It stretches to the horizon in an unbroken expanse of bleak, featureless white.

It’s not like he expected to visit Utgard. From what his father had explained, Thor’d fully expected to be out in the middle of nowhere. By prior agreement Heimdall had intentionally put him down some distance from the closest encampment, where – on a clearer day, when any Jotun scouts might actually be able to see it - the Bifrost’s distinctive light signature might still be mistaken for an odd force of nature and its equally recognizable sound wouldn’t carry. This, though, has proved extreme. Even in daylight, what with the constant snow, Thor often hasn’t been able to see beyond the end of his own arm.

As dusk falls and the weather finally settles, he still isn’t able to make out any signs of habitation anywhere. No lights, no curls of smoke or puffs of steam. There’s nothing anywhere beyond ice and snow – the latter broken only by the endless slog of his own footprints - as far as the eye can see. And no sound, save for the wind. Even the air itself smells crisp… lifeless and clean.

He doesn’t like it.

~

There isn’t any point in continuing. Before nightfall proper Thor had studied what he could of the terrain well enough to be certain that continuing to press on under cover of darkness would be far too treacherous. Stupid, probably fatally so. Just a few feet to the left and right he’d passed huge fissures, places where the ice had torn and split. Some of them had been a dozen paces wide, easily large enough to swallow an entire regiment of close to a hundred men. And even the smallest crack would doubtless be enough to snap an ankle. Or worse. Not long after the last light has faded from the sky, Thor picks out a sheltering snowdrift against the endless deep blue. The wind doesn’t make it easy, but he does his best to position his little tent to take advantage of whatever small protection the land might offer.

All too soon the sun has fallen complete out of the sky. It’s really too late to start a fire (not that he’s seen a single stick of wood anyway, not in all this endless white). Thor eats cold rations and huddles unhappily under everything he’s brought along: his tunic, blanket, and cloak together barely make a dent in the cold. Even with his hands wedged in his armpits and his feet drawn up against his backside, there’s no hope of making himself anywhere near comfortable.

His breath condenses on the bedding closest to his face, leaving everything frozen solid. He shudders. Outside the tent, the wind whirls on. Falling asleep takes what feels like forever.

When unconsciousness finally does pulls him in, he dreams repeatedly of falling. Lower and lower, on and on. In an entire night of restless sleep, he never reaches the bottom.

~

Bit by bit, in his waking life, Thor finds that things do eventually start to fall into place. While it had taken five long days’ hiking (and five miserable nights’ broken, shivering, tooth-chattering sleep), he’d finally located a grove of stunted, twisted trees – barely more than shrubs, really - along the leeward side of a long ridge. Two nights ago he’d stopped there, excited to finally collect enough wood to (not only start, but) feed a fire. He’d spent a day and a half exploring the area until, at the base of that very same ridge, he’d finally found himself a perfectly serviceable cave.

He spends one last frozen night in his tent, as there’s no way it’s prudent to investigate the cave at nightfall. Not that the brightest Asgardian sun (let alone its weak Jotun counterpart) would offer any hope of lighting more than the first five steps’ worth, but a hasty flight from whatever might be nipping or clawing at his heels would only be that much less pleasant (not to mention all the more likely to send him tumbling to a horrible, premature death) when paired with an escape route too dark to see. Or worse yet another creature already in residence, especially one more interested in eating than greeting when it comes to company.

By shortly after sunrise, though, he can’t stand to wait any longer. The sky has barely turned its palest blue before morning finds Thor binding branches and oiled cloth into a workable – if sloppy; his tutors aren’t here to comment anyway - facsimile of a torch and making his smoky way farther and farther in.

The more he sees, the happier he is about it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor finally gets to doing a little actual exploring.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

Exploring the cave – what looks to be _his_ cave, given that it’s as unoccupied as unoccupied can be – doesn’t take all that long, and (even though he knows it was the right decision) Thor is a little annoyed that he (froze another night while he) waited. He really only needs a few minutes to decide that as foreign, peacetime encampments go the place is just what he needs. In such an ugly climate, in fact – even in wartime, which he knows this isn’t meant to be - he could hardly do better.

The cave’s mouth is narrow enough to easily defend. That’s important; despite his parents’ strict instructions that he isn’t here to take on the locals, he knows Jotunheim is home to a number of dangerous non-Jotnar predators as well. And while some of them are quite large, far too big to fit in the cave at all, it’s reasonable to expect others are- well, man-sized. Smaller, even. But as long as nothing can sneak inside and circle around behind him, even something as mundanely necessary as a cooking fire will be enough to drive back any creature interested in joining (or, more to the point, having) him for dinner.

Better still, there are a few large rocks scattered just inside the cave’s mouth. Really large ones, rocks even Thor strains to shove about. When he’s asleep, or has cause to leave his new homestead for an hour or twenty – to hunt, to continue the exploration that both brought and keeps him here – any one of those rocks ought to keep uninvited visitors small enough to squeeze into the cave outside where they belong.

Beyond its narrow entryway the cave opens out nicely. Thor can stand upright; it’s only when he stretches as far as he can that his fingers brush the slick, cold ceiling. At its widest point he needs five good strides to cross from one side to the other. And then it ends rather abruptly just short of eight strides in, with no evidence whatsoever of any small passageways – the kind that make it all too easy for unwelcome guests to bypass the designated entryway and sneak up on the unsuspecting – leading further into the ridge in any direction.

He’s especially excited to find a long, worn, stable-looking crack in the cave’s ceiling. It’s about three fingers wide at its broadest point, and from the ridge of frozen snow underneath it (and the hint of light he can see when he stands directly underneath) Thor’s reasonably sure it goes all the way up to windblown ground above. If he cooks below it, on days he cannot do so outside, most of the smoke should vent out the roof and blend in with the swirling snow above. The crack is well off to the side of the entryway, too; if he’s wrong, and heating the area below it brings that patch of ceiling down, he’ll still be able to escape.

It’s perfect, at least as far as it goes. And it goes as far as he needs it to.

Thor has very little to unpack – there isn’t much among his things he can spare, really, on his daily explorations – but any shelter from the elements in very, very welcome. Even in what passes here for warmer weather, Jotunheim’s climate is clearly quite unpleasant from the perspective of anyone (himself included) hailing from the warmer southern realms. Which, yes, is to say pretty much everyone.

It’s a bit unexpected, but the way the cave quickly comes to feel like home is nice, too. Thor feels as though he can afford to relax inside. He can hang his wet clothes to air, have a slice of apple, and dry his boots by the fire (which doesn’t bring the place crashing down around him, fortunately). On the sixth night, he’s finally able to sleep from dusk past dawn and awaken (stiff, yes, but) feeling nicely rested.

He was right all along, too: scouting patrols are indeed less taxing.

~

Thor spends the next fortnight (with icy stone walls to dig marks into and plenty of little scraps of rocks to use for scratching, the cave provides him simple means for tracking time’s passing; he no longer has to guess by watching the sun overhead and hope his memory serves him well) systematically familiarizing himself with everything within a half-day’s walk of the ridge. He does learn to navigate by Jotunheim’s pale sun, and by the unfamiliar constellations that – on rare breaks in the snow - fill the nighttime sky. Finding north isn’t difficult once he knows what to look for; every time he finds himself heading that way, all those Aesir words of warning echo in his head. The land to the north looks no different than anything else, no more full of cracks or thick with snow, and he feels a little foolish for being afraid. Regardless, it’s not worth the risk and he’s careful not to stray too far in that direction.

All in all the portion of of the renowned _barren Jotunheim wasteland_ within walking distance of his cave turns out not to be the least bit barren. With the relative shelter it offers, the area around the ridge is home to a surprisingly wide assortment of wildlife. Thor is no stranger to hunting – few Aes are – but, too, he loves animals. Most of the creatures he sees, he is content to simply study; he kills only what he needs to eat and no more. He limits himself to the surprisingly plentiful rabbitish things – with their thick white pelts, fluffy tails, and flattened, webbed hind feet – that dot the ridge and – for variety - the very occasional white, rotund flightless bird. The predators he spots in the distance, Thor carefully leaves alone.

He’s on a mission of peace, after all. Odin made that much painfully clear. And even if that weren’t the case, voluntarily entering into combat (alone) with anything that might readily defeat (and then devour) him is nothing short of stupid. He’s not here to learn to be stupid; of that, at least, he’s certain.

~

One afternoon in his fifth week abroad Thor spots (what he initially takes to be) a small hunting party of giants far in the distance. He tracks their course for well over an hour, all the while avoiding getting close enough to risk detection. That last part turns out to be easy, as he can only just keep up with them at all.

While the group of Jotuns does not appear to be heavily fortified (indeed, there are eight of them and they do not seem to be carrying anything at all), he has played part in far too many ambushes and traps to take the information his eyes supply him for granted. Too, from what he has seen, all Jotnar can arm themselves in seconds using nothing but the water in their own bodies… and seidr.

This band doesn’t actually do any hunting, and doesn’t turn back. They laugh and wave their hands about as if conversing, meaning they appear to be in no hurry, but their long limbs carry them nearly as fast as Thor at his hardest pace can travel. By the start of the third hour he must make a choice; stick with them, which might well mean a night spent burrowed (cold and miserable) into a snow bank and then a difficult course back alone, or abandon pursuit now and return to his cave.

The choice isn’t a particularly difficult one. He opts for the latter, even though it means he has a long hike ahead of him; one he really needs to complete before nightfall.

He’s going to be worn out; it will be nice to be home.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No choice comes without a cost.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

 

The walk back – plodding tiredly along, one foot after the other, without the benefit of Jotnar to set a brisk pace – takes Thor quite a bit longer than it ought to. By the time he finally finds himself back beneath the protective crest of the ridge he’s left most of the day behind him. A few yards from the cave he first startles and then kills a brace of those familiar rabbit-like creatures. By that point dusk is already falling and he has to hurry to clean and skin them before it’s too dark to see. Tired as he is it’s worth the work, though; not even an hour later he’s warming himself happily over a generous potful of thick (albeit unseasoned…Thor makes mental note: the next time he yields to his father’s wishes and is coerced into traveling the wilds of Jotunheim (or Muspelheim, or anywhere else cities are few and far between), he will make certain he brings along a few basic spices and herbs), comforting stew. Unlike that of Asgard, the wildlife here manages to be at once both fit and fatty; the meat the little creatures yield is exceptional.

After his meal Thor is full and sleepy. It’s a struggle to stay awake long enough to clean up after himself, but he does his best; anything he doesn’t deal with now will only be that much less appealing left for tomorrow. He boils snow into water and scrubs away. Before his cooking pot is even halfway clean, though, he finds himself hard put to stop yawning.

He throws what’s left of the bones out into the snow. If they’re there in the morning, he’ll find a better way to dispose of them. At least outside they won’t draw animals into the cave. The last thing he needs just now is to have his much-needed rest interrupted by something unwelcome (and hungry).

~

A long day of hard foot travel and a late, heavy meal, taken together, make for a sound, dreamless sleep. When Thor finally wakes, it’s to (the call of his bladder, and) the vicious snorts and growls of something much larger than his dinner pawing at the cave’s mouth. He leaps out of the pile of clothing that serves as his bed and hurries to light a brand from the embers of last night’s fire – on a frozen realm such as this, surely even the largest predators still flee the business ends of burning sticks – only to find the coals cold and grey.

He’s furious with himself, both for baiting the thing with the remains of his dinner and for neglecting to stoke the fire. When it comes to defending the place, he belatedly realizes he’s left himself far too few decent options.

Calling a storm, sadly, isn’t among them. Not here, where he’s been tasked with being unobtrusive. Thor curses under his breath and vows to wait the beast out. From the safety of his cave he can see there won’t be any fighting it; not with the tools he has at his disposal, anyway, and not in such close quarters. It’s a hulking boarlike creature, well taller than he is at the shoulder, sporting thick, curved tusks and coarse dirty-white fur. Even though its attempts to gain entry seem clumsy and slow, Thor can’t be sure – and doubts, really – that he could outrun it. Not without exposing himself beyond the point of safety. There’s simply too much risk involved, for too little gain. If the beast didn’t kill him, in other words, his father would finish the job for it.

Thor retreats towards the back of his cave, cape over his shoulders and arms folded across his chest, still set on outwaiting his unwelcome visitor.

~

Things don’t work out quite that way. His home away from home, while a perfect size for day-to-day living, is too small for any real pacing. Its ceiling is too low for calisthenics. Anxious and miserable, with neither fire nor the work of his own muscles to warm him, Thor quickly becomes almost unbearably cold. His toes go numb, his fingers cramp. Still the beast roots and digs.

Thor’s exasperated. He stamps his feet. “Auugggh,” he roars at last, out of frustration and disgust and pain. “Have you no place to be? Truly? Carry on, you great oaf, and let me alone.”

He’s surprised when it- it does exactly as instructed. The thing turns tail, perhaps startled by his outburst, and disappears into the snow.

“You idiot,” Thor admonishes himself afterward, laughing and shivering and hugging his own sides tightly. “You could have run it off ages ago and had a good fire going by now, you loud and ridiculous fool.” Then too, he could have gotten up on time… just a few short minutes devoted to fire-stoking, in the wee hours of the morning, and the whole unfortunate business could have been avoided.

It doesn’t take him long to calm down. Thor waits a few minutes more (to be sure the animal is well and truly gone, as it wouldn’t do to be ambushed) and then heads out into the bushes in search of more firewood. A few paces from his cave’s mouth, the great boar’s tracks climb to skirt the ridge and then lead off in the opposite direction.

The wind howls; today is even colder then usual. It’s beautiful and clear, though, enough so that Thor’s not wholly out of the ridge’s shadow before he’s glad he’d thought to bring along his goggles. He takes a moment to don them before heading out into the open. Even then, he has to squint to really see. Everything is bright white, with afterimages of pink and orange and green. Without his goggles, Thor’s sure, he’d be sporting a terrible headache.

The day really is lovely, though. As he walks what has become his most-frequented route, Thor feels his mood lifting. The wind has unburied enough wood to make this excursion worth his while; he quickly collects an armload and starts – a bit reluctantly, actually – back to the cave. He almost hates to go back inside. It hasn’t been a bad way to spend an hour. He’s enjoyed himself out here in the rare Jotun sun, listening to the crunch and squeak of snow underfoot.

For the first time in weeks, Thor actually catches himself laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which stuff happens. But not until I blather on for a while.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

After several snow-free days in a row, Thor settles on the cave floor in front of his makeshift calendar and spends a few minutes counting off the marks. The daylight hours have been longer of late, and the days themselves nicer (at least, they’ve been what passes for _nicer_ here; less windy, not quite cold enough to freeze exposed skin faster than you can hope to cover it, and clearly more likely to be filled with sun than snow). Hiking about has been much more pleasant, and recently he hasn’t been paying as close attention to time’s passing. Even after counting everything off (twice) he can’t help but be a bit shocked to find himself – and Jotunheim - poised at the near edge of summer.

It really does make sense, though. Strange as the place may be, Thor’d be hard put to claim things weren’t growing.

For example, in his journeys beyond the ridge, he’s noticed more and more animals coming out of their winter hiding places. And just a week ago he’d found - less than half an hour’s walk south, where there’d previously been nothing but a frozen wasteland – the endless snow giving way to something more like high tundra.

As the weather improves he makes hiking down to the newly grassy plain a daily ritual. It’s a good research opportunity, too, or at least that’s what he tells himself. And while he does have to be ever vigilant (from what’d he’s seen, at least a few Jotuns are as drawn to the broad, greening flatlands as he is), the chance to walk unhindered across ground that doesn’t slip and crack beneath him proves irresistible.

The terrain is too open for any real relaxing, though. The warrior in Thor knows he’s far too exposed to chance letting down his guard. Anyone who spots him, even from a distance, will know he isn’t native… and that’s bound to draw unwelcome attention. He keeps to the edges of the plain, where the scattered, windblown shrubs provide cover. It doesn’t feel like enough. Every afternoon, as he makes his way back to his cave, he takes pains to vary his route above the snowline in hopes of not being tracked directly to his door.

In truth, though, he can’t be sure all his precautions are necessary. Once or twice he’s been run from the watering hole by huge, predatory wildcat-like creatures with fangs twice as long as his forearm, but he never spots a frost giant within a few hundred paces of his cave.

He might as well be invisible. It’s an odd, odd feeling.

Maybe he’s been spotted; maybe he hasn’t. Either way, any locals whose attention he might have caught (and he can’t be sure there are any) certainly haven’t take very long to lose all interest. Some days that almost makes him sad; he’s been nearly six turns of the moon here with no one but himself to keep him company. On the other hand, it’s for the best. The Jotnar are a warring people. Thor can’t deny that this way he’s more likely to earn his father’s blessing – to return to Asgard, to go home - quickly.

Still, he’s lonely. And walking the place is getting a bit tedious. Boring.

~

He’s nearly back to his cave, not more than a minute’s walk away, when it happens.

Thor doesn’t even know what hits him. He’s crouched to adjust a boot when the creature – he assumes it is beast and not man, judging from the sounds it makes; a short, shrieking howl, followed by loud, snorting grunts – plows into him from behind and sends him tumbling head over heels across the snow. He rolls up into a fighting stance just as something splat- “FUCK!”

Too late, his brain registers the wet noise. His face is hot and cold and hot again. He tries to straighten up but pain doubles him right back over, leaving him clawing at his face and howling in agony.

Instinctively he rips off his gloves and swipes at his mouth, his nose, his eyes. Wetness, everywhere. Thor tries desperately to focus; he’s a seasoned, battle-hardened warrior with countless years of fighting behind him. He’s under attack and needs to pull himself together.

He swings his staff hard and fast. When it snaps in his hands, Thor takes off running.

It’s all comes to naught. He can’t have run more than a minute when the pain stops him dead; horrible, searing agony, enough that he swears his flesh is boiling away. Thor doesn’t even recognize the harsh panting he hears as his own.

~

Winter. Freezing. Dark. It takes him a long while to come even partly back into himself, and longer still to fight past his panic. Once he can think again, Thor forces himself to take methodical inventory: he’s shaking, great shudders wracking his body from head to toe. His teeth chatter. The awful burning in his face and fingers is gone, replaced with an odd, dead numbness. Unable to tell if it’s poison or frostbite, Thor jams his hands up under his tunic and tries to warm them in the shelter of his own armpits.

While his hands thaw, he looks around. Or tries, rather. It might be the darkest night he’s ever seen; pitch, pitch black. No stars, no moon, not even the faintest glimmer of light reflecting off the snow. Nothing at all, anywhere he turns. Just velvety, featureless darkness.

~

Warming his hands takes forever, but despite the horror stories he’s heard – and witnessed in the making, in battle – there’s very little pain. Instead the strange numbness persists, even after his hands are reasonably functional.

Once he’s finally regained enough dexterity Thor swallows down his fear and struggles to hoist himself up to sitting. His head throbs with a dull, nauseating ache. There’s still no light to be seen, not even along what must be the low arc of the horizon. He brings a hand up, swallows down his fear, and feels his face carefully.

Outside of the partial loss of sensation, everything seems- normal. His skin feels intact, as best his semi-numb fingers can tell. Thor breathes a grateful sigh of relief when his exploring fingers reveal nothing except more of the same mild sleeping-limb dullness. His lips work. His nostrils work. His eyes open and close, their lashes still long and feathery against his hands. It’s still quite unpleasant when he accidentally pokes himself in the eye with a finger, and still leads to involuntary tears.

Slowly, despite the muzzy-headed shivering, bits and pieces come back to him. The noise. The surprise attack. The lonely walk he’d been nearly back (not home) from. He can’t be more than a few dozen paces from his cave. The ground on this side of the ridge is stable and safe, relatively speaking; he’s explored every last big of it and found no significant fissures, no steep drop-offs, and no drifts (this time of year, anyway) large enough to pose a problem. Dark as it is tonight, he can make his way back to his cave. In one piece, even, as long as he’s careful.

And once he’s safely inside, he can pull out his flint and light a fire. He can warm himself properly, and drive out the nagging feeling that something more is wrong.

~

Getting back to the cave is slower going than Thor expected, really. Between the utter darkness and his mildly dazed state, he finds himself stumbling over nothing every time he tries to pick up a little speed. The icy ground is hard and unforgiving; he’s not yet halfway there – if he’s even moving in the right direction at all, because the longer he goes the less certain he is about his location - before his hands are bruised and his gloves and leggings are cold and wet with snow and blood.

And the cave? Nowhere to be found. No stunted, ratty bushes, even. Just snow and ice and more snow, and this awful, interminable darkness.

It’s not long before Thor’s forced to admit it: he’s gotten himself hopelessly lost. He hasn’t come across over a single bit of vegetation, and he’s moving in softer, deeper snow now; snow that comes up to his thighs. If he presses on, disorientation and exhaustion could kill him. He curses as colorfully as he knows how and then, when even that does nothing to improve the situation, begins digging himself a makeshift nest in the snow.

He’s warm from the exertion, and this certainly isn’t the first time he’s slept in the cold under his cloak before; he can doubtless do it one more time. In the morning he can take better stock of his whereabouts and trace his way back to the cave.

Frustration doesn’t justify foolishness, after all. Thor wraps himself in as many layers as he’s been able to carry, lest the numbness lull him into accidental frostbite. It’s only when he’s as safe as he can manage that he finally lets himself go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter Loki and his bad attitude.
> 
>  
> 
> _12/10/17 - updated to correct what later became a continuity issue... in too many places to fix it elsewhere!_

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

Loki blinks awake and sits up slowly, rubbing his eyes. It’s a beautiful, sunny summer day and one of the best parts about being out here alone on the northern side of the plain is that he’s able to sleep as late as he wants to. No nagging parents, not like his brothers must always cope with (because despite what one might assume about realms to run and better ways to spend one’s time kings do nag, and so do the even stricter dams that bear their children) and (speaking of which) no tattling brothers. Yes, the weather is so mild here that an uncomfortable pool of sweat has collected itself under his loincloth. Yes, said sweat itches. All told, though, that’s a small price to pay for such lovely freedom. At least, that’s what he tells himself. Often. Loki flops back down onto the rumpled furry mess he’s made of his cloak, which is far too warm to wear on days like this but still nice and soft for sleeping. There’s no hurry. Summer days are long; he can hunt later.

It’s not like anyone’s keeping score. He’s been away from the palace for many, many turns of the moon now, so many most people would have lost count, and it’s unlikely anyone has missed him. One advantage of being the runt (and such benefits are very, very few, despite the brave face Loki always does his best to put on the whole situation) is that – by virtue being utterly unsuited for Jotunheim’s throne and its royal heritage (with, of course, kingship and inheritance and everything else that might have come along afterward forfeit) – no one expects anything from him. More to the point no one knows he exists, for all intents literally. To the best of his knowledge, beyond his blood family, only two people know he survived his own birth: the bland peasant nobody his dam (who’d found herself unable to give him up to the snow despite clear obligation) passed him off to, and that dratted Aesir gatekeeper spy. Here in his home realm Loki’s brothers are the center of attention; as the _lost child, the one who died,_ he is nothing more than a sad footnote to history. 

All his life – to the unwitting traitor who’d raised him - Loki has been considered exceptionally gifted in the magical and healing arts. Born to different parents he would likely have trained as healer, or as a guide. As it is, because he can never show even a fraction of his true power without forfeiting his life for real, he’s been a poor(-appearing) student and a lazy, difficult thing.

And regardless of his parents, he knows, he would never have been a ruler. A king, his teachers lost no opportunity to share, must have presence and be commanding. Like the present king’s oh-so-precious sons. Apparently all the charisma in the nine realms is useless when - at your full-grown height, despite countless hours of your childhood lost to stretching and straining - you can balance on your tippy-tippy toes and still barely see over the banquet table.

His teachers – and they would have been tutors instead, were he in line for the throne - would never have dared say such things to his face, had they known his true identity. Then again, if anyone knew who he was, Loki would be dead.

In contrast, he’s spent enough time lurking about Utgard to know that his brothers are never free to roam the palace, even… whether because their duties keep them at court, or because King Laufey (on a whim) deems their presence essential for obscure reasons no one dares question. Whereas Loki, invisible as he is, generally has the run of the entire realm. Sometimes he’s unpleasantly reminded that’s proof no one cares if he lives or dies. On days like this, though, he’s hard put to see it as anything less than the gift of a lifetime.

From everything he’s seen to be part of the court is nothing short of torture… to have assignments, tasks, and chores; to waste the best weather of the year (and the best years of a life) stuck in a dank, icy halls with nothing save stale air and damp parchment to keep yourself company. By contrast, out here on the plain, Loki has but one duty: finding enough food to ensure his own survival. And that’s something a runt-who-would-otherwise-be-royalty quickly masters. He’s fantastic at it now; as far back as he can remember, which is more than far enough, he has been.

Not that his freedom is completely without bounds. Is anyone’s? Right on the heels of the summer season come the heavy snows of autumn, at which point most animals migrate south and the hunting abruptly gets more and more challenging. The sort of difficult weather that transforms the plain back into a snowfield is months away, though. Loki is determined not to worry about it now; he’ll cross that bridge, as he’s heard the people of Midgard are so fond of saying, when he comes to it.

He does miss his reading, though. When he isn’t busying – better known as enjoying, in the privacy of his own head – himself out here on the plain, Loki very much likes to keep up his studies. And while he reads most anything he can gets his hands on, he’s especially drawn to the other realms’ histories in general. Midgard’s in particular. The middle realm originally caught his attention by virtue of the ire it had drawn from (and then foisted back upon) his people. And while modern Midgardians don’t seem to interest the Jotun court nearly as much as their ancestors once once did, Loki isn’t part of that court. He still enjoys learning about whatever today’s Midgardians have gotten themselves up to.

It’s really only on days like today, when he’s feeling exceptionally lazy, that Loki misses the palace at Utgard itself. And even then it’s not the place; rather, he misses the fact that, in and around the citadel, servants (catch, if needed, or at least) prepare food. It’s easy enough to sneak around behind them and take whatever tempts him. Out here in the wild, though, when he finds himself hungry Loki has no choice but to go catch himself a meal. Out here, he is completely on his own.

He’s nothing if not contrary. The very thing he loves, he also hates about it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki goes hunting for a meal and finds a surprise instead.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

By late morning, as pleased as the rest of him might be to be out from under every imaginable thumb and suffering no particular agenda, Loki’s stomach is growling unhappily. “Okay, okay,” he mutters to himself (there is, after all, no one else here to listen) before rolling onto his hands and knees and then standing up with a long groan. He takes his time stretching first one side and then the other, by turns bracing a palm on each thigh and reaching up-up-up with his free hand. “I’ll go snare something,” he promises his empty stomach as he catches his hair up in a heavy, sloppy braid. Nothing he’s going to be eating will care what he looks like. “But you need to be quiet,” he adds as his belly rumbles even more loudly. “There’ll be no hope of catching anything with you making this much of a ruckus.”

It’s not long before he realizes that he isn’t going to be catching much of anything in this particularly vicinity, at least not from the looks of it. Loki is positive he’s never seen the grasslands this devoid of game, not even at the peak of summer when water is scarce and the dry grass makes tracking considerably more difficult. Searching on and on quickly grows frustrating and he almost regrets having let his gut get so empty. Almost, but not quite, since he never makes a wrong choice. Or maybe he actually does harbor a regret or two; he’s _hungry_. Regardless, he’s never going to admit it… not to anyone. Which all works out nicely, since there’s no one out here with him to care anyway.

Eventually his empty stomach forces him to leave open ground behind in favor of moving farther and father north. The closer he gets to the snowline, the more signs of animal life – of lunch, which will be dinner if he can’t make better progress – he finds: rubbed bark and nibbled leaves on a shrub here, trails worn into the hard-packed dirt there. Once or twice there’s even the odd tuft of shed hair. He huffs unhappily when his bare feet come in contact with the first icy, irregular patches; as much as Loki (like all of his kin) is a winter creature, the refrozen mess that forms at the intersection of grass and snow is at best unpleasant. Ridges of slush-turned-ice bruise his heels and dig into the comparatively delicate undersides of his arches. No matter how carefully he walks (and just now he has no patience for caution) he invariably hurts himself somehow.

All the same, he’s only a few strides into the snow beyond before he has to admit that _being here is better_.

Much better, really. This far north, Loki knows, he may actually get a chance to catch something while there’s still enough daylight to clean it. He squats and studies the land around him. The snow-covered ground is crisscrossed with animal trails: hoof prints, claw marks, the footprints of creatures sporting big and little pads. Some are nearly as crisply fresh as Loki’s own; others have melted and then frozen again, over and over, to the point where they’re shapeless and completely unrecognizable.

He straightens with a hiss and stretches one last time – a morning spent lazing abed isn’t the best lead-in to cold-weather hunting, at least not when you’re working alone – before trotting off in pursuit of what looks to be a small deer. Its hoof prints are sharp-edged, new and clear. From the depth and spacing he can see that the little creature favors one leg heavily. There isn’t any blood; perhaps an older injury, then, or an imbalance it was born with. Whatever the cause, something clearly impairs it. That’s bound to make it slow. Loki pads along near-silently with one of his trusty throwing knives in hand, certain he’s finally found his next meal. The deer must be unwittingly awaiting its sad fate just over the top of the next rise, an he will-.

_Huh._

Without conscious thought Loki drops back into a squat to closely study the new trail, one that crosses the deer’s and then winds unevenly off into the distance before him. It simply doesn’t fit. He scrunches up his nose and rubs his eyes before looking at the prints again. That doesn’t help; nothing changes.

Absolutely nothing.

He claws a few stray wisps of hair out of his face and frowns. It’s all right there in front of him and yet… he still can’t quite believe what his senses are telling him.

Because this? This is something he’s rarely seen before, never even half this far away from the citadel (and only very, very occasionally there): a _boot_ print, and then another and another.

A heavy leather boot with a thick, rigid sole, that is, not something soft and fitted. Not something Jotun.

No one native to this place would wear such a ridiculous thing; winter creatures have no need. It’s only the people of Asgard who go about shod thus. And those of Midgard, of course. Perhaps a few dwarves, even, but no human or dwarf could possibly have left impressions this deep. No human would have survived this harsh climate long enough to _get_ here.

An Aes, then, and from the weaving steps a drunken one. The more he studies the prints, the more nothing about the situation makes any sense whatsoever. What Aes would come here, to the Jotun tundra, and then (drink itself stupid, only to) head north up into the deep snow?

This could be personal. Someone could be attempting to dupe him, certainly. Loki crouches even lower and looks carefully around, his senses abruptly on high alert. Somewhere in the distance an animal howls. Otherwise, silence. If this is a trap, it’s a very good – or very bad – one.

What he _should_ do is shake it off and head back in the opposite direction. There’s plenty of other prey to be had… and no sign of the deer he’d been tracking anyway. Walking towards danger for no reason whatsoever is- well, it’s ridiculous. He wants to have a meal, not become one.

Any self-respecting frost giant would laugh at him.

Still, Loki can’t help himself. Hungry or not, idiotic or wise, he’s curious. Ultimately he gets to his feet with a louder-than-necessary sigh and stalks off towards the base of the closest hill, careful to keep the booted footprints to his right.

A trail this odd has to lead somewhere.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Real life has been kicking my butt recently. I do plan to keep on with this... but I can't yet promise how regularly I'll be able to update.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

If nothing else, Loki has to admit that the Aes who left these prints behind has _stamina_. Only after a solid hour of walking, during which his stomach stubbornly insists on reminding him with ever-increasing regularity that he’s left behind a smarter plan in pursuit of a highly, _highly_ questionable one, does he finally see the first subtle signs that his quarry might be (not just weaving about ridiculously, but) tiring: a misstep here, a hand or knee print there. Not every step, but often enough regardless.

The rich blue of dusk has already settled in around him by the time Loki (hungry enough to eat an entire pair of boots, soles and all… not to mention tired, and well more than a little annoyed) comes to an abrupt halt. Just off to his left the ground slopes away gently, forming a low ridge that serves to redirect the windblown snow. To trap it, in truth, much like he’s heard told of the hedgerows of Midgard. Beyond the ridge’s lip, drifts barely ankle-deep up on the crest have gathered soft and thick below. The trail he’s been following leads – well, not _straight_ , exactly; the sudden change in terrain had clearly caught his quarry off-guard and left the man stumbling and weaving about in an even more pronounced fashion – directly down into the hollow.

Loki shields his eyes against the wind and squints out into the distance, where the rising moon is preparing to take over for its brother the fading sun. The Aes’ wobbly, uneven trail extends down into the shallow valley as far as he can see. What it doesn’t appear to do is come back up the other side. He feels a little thrill of- anticipation, maybe. Not that he would ever admit to even the smallest jolt of fear.

He’s reminded once again that the whole thing could be a trap, of course. Loki’s brothers would advise one another to give the place a wide berth. “If it’s dead, it’s dead,” he can practically hear (either) one of them warning the other, from his imagined hiding place behind the throne. “And if it’s not, you’re asking to be. We’re heirs to the mighty kingdom of Jotunheim. We can’t risk our lives taking stupid chances.”

He rolls up onto the balls of his feet and takes another look around, straining to make out any telltale signs that the creature might have doubled back to lie in wait for careless trackers.

Yet again, nothing. Loki sighs and starts off through the snow at just more than a leisurely stroll. If the Aes is dead, he’s dead, after all. There certainly isn’t any cause for hurrying.

~

Some half an hour in – even for Loki the going is a bit slow, what with the snow so fresh and deep – the trail he’s following stops being a trail at all and instead devolves into stumbling that’s more and more erratic. Six paces this way, ten that, all with no discernable rhyme or reason. A few more staggering steps and the path ends altogether… in a messy collection of footprints ringing of a sloppily dug hole. His heart hammers. The scooped out spot looks like nothing so much as a _nest_ , dug to fit someone or something only slightly larger than Loki.

He silently retreats a few yards to survey the situation at what he hopes is a safe distance. While he’s bound to be the fleeter of foot in the snow, should it come to running, there’s no way to know what sort of weaponry a rogue Aes might be carrying. And while Loki can blend right into the landscape at the verge of nightfall, that isn’t going to save him from bleeding out if he’s wounded. He sits back on his heels, ready to leap up and sprint away if necessary, and then he waits.

And waits, and waits. And yawns, and waits some more.

Surprise, surprise: nothing. This may just be the most nothing-filled day Loki can remember.

Long after the last of his patience has worn as thin as last year’s hides, he still hasn’t spotted even one single hint of movement. Loki runs through his options at some length before settling on lobbing a snowball into the pit. He’s a good twenty long strides into running away before his ears remind him that – yet again - nothing whatsoever has come of it.

Three snowballs later, he cautiously creeps right up to the hole. When there’s still no discernable sound or motion, Loki calls his seidr and floats a tiny wisp of greenish flame above the dip. Two steps, three, and he’s back down on his heels peering inside. Sure enough: there’s an Aes, a great bear of a man-beast wrapped in dark leather, curled up in the snow. The man is so completely still that, save for the tiny puffs of condensation between full, pale lips – miniature clouds so slight and far between that Loki half thinks his eyes are playing tricks on him – the Aes could very well be dead. If he leaves things as they are, in a few hours the man surely will be.

And that is how this should end.

No Aes has any right or reason to be out here in the northern reaches, certainly not unannounced and unaccompanied. If the man dies here, with him will go whatever trouble he’d been planning. 

Loki knows exactly what he ought to - no, must - do: back away carefully until he is well out of range, and then walk back the way he came. A cold death is a pleasant death, peaceful and soft. And if he’s somehow mistaken and this Aes is actually here for good and not ill, then the man’s passing will doubtless be deemed an honorable one. In that case the Aes can go to Valhalla, like Loki’s heard all such aspire to do, and feast with the spirits of countless storied kin.

And if Loki isn’t mistaken, well, once again… the man should not have wandered out this way. And Loki will have, for the first time in forever, acted in perfect accord with his estranged father’s wishes.

Right. Like he can let _that_ happen.

Which is probably (exactly) why he- he doesn’t.

Instead, he digs away at the leading edge of the hole, working by the light of his own seidr. Once he’s made himself enough space to do so, he gets what he thinks is a serviceable grip on the Aes’ cloak and tugs-.

-and promptly falls on his own bare rump in the snow, all the air forced out of his lungs in a hot, loud rush. The man is heavy, far heavier than he’d expected, and all that thick clothing has frozen far too solid to give any real purchase. After several more equally hopeless attempts - followed by a minute or two spent (pretending he isn’t catching his breath while) standing back up and sending long tendrils of seidr out to survey their surroundings - Loki resorts to spell-casting. He lets his seidr do the hardest work, hoisting the Aes up out of the makeshift snowy bed and half-floating, half-dragging the man back across the valley.

At least this time he can follow the path left behind by their combined footsteps. Even that’s enough work to leave him sweaty, worn, and panting.

All the fun has long since gone out of Loki’s hunt. He can’t even eat this particular creature. Enemy or not, an Aes is another man. It’s one thing to strike down warriors in battle and another entirely to scavenge their (near-)dead comrades for dinner. And now that he’s gotten started on this ill-favored course he just can’t stomach the idea of leaving the man here to be pulled apart by animals hungrier (and less picky, or at least less burdened by conscience) than he.

By the time they’re back up on the ridge Loki knows he needs to rest. He drops the Aes in the snow and spends a few minutes pacing and cursing softly. By the end, he’s officially decided what he already knew: he’s going to have to take the man somewhere more protected and see what condition – and, of course, who – the Aes thaws into. His choice made, there’s no point in continuing to do things the hard way; Loki wraps his arms around the near-frozen man and yanks the two of them completely out of this reality.

A mere blink of an eye later – a day’s walking journey across the realm, had he opted to stick with manual labor… which would, yes, have been well beyond crazy - Loki pulls them both back in.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Em Gee, look what's back?
> 
> I made a major revision to the underlying premise. Fortunately for you (and me), the topic in question had not yet come up in the published chapters. There are minor wording changes in chapters six and eight; aside from that, I have no further plans to revise what's already on ao3. The changes I did make were just for the sake of better editing. They do not affect the actual story.
> 
> Here, Loki tries to revive his prize.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

His hands are inconveniently full. Loki wrinkles his nose and lights the first torch with the smallest possible twitch of his fingers. He blinks as his eyes adjust; after the night’s darkness, even a dim, flickering red-orange glow takes some getting used to.

This particular cave has always been one of his favorites, especially when it comes time to lick wounds and recuperate from unfortunate mishaps. From its deceptively small opening it extends through the ice and deep into the rock beneath; even in the worst weather it’s dependably livable, regardless of whether or not he is in any shape to enchant it. Just a few steps in the even, icy floor gives way to a steeply sloped descent. At its bottom is a low-ceilinged, humid chamber that’s consistently warm enough to melt ice. As wilderness homes go it’s a nice northern retreat, one perfectly suited to slow, careful rewarming.

Loki’s by no means a trained healer, but his people – runts or no… all right, yes, runts especially – cannot survive to adulthood without knowing their way around the proper thawing of frozen creatures (this collection comprising unwise Jotnar, most often, but not infrequently chilled beasts as well). Jotunheim’s economy is as harsh as its climate; no one (beyond the royal family, at least) can afford to lose a hard-working heir or much-needed livestock to the snow.

At the real heart of the matter, they’re all just beasts anyway. While he has no way of knowing for certain Loki warrants - from what he has seen of its warriors, and the things he’s learned through his own studies – that the Aes taken collectively aren’t physiologically unique enough to pose an insurmountable challenge.

And if this particular one does? Well, left to his own devices the man was bound to die anyway.

_If only_ , Loki thinks, despite how perhaps he shouldn’t. Because speaking of _beasts_ this specific Aes is a solid one. Even with the considerable help of his own seidr, Loki grunts as he unloads (drops, really, but who’s to know?) his burden onto the nearest of several piles of furs. It’s nothing fancy, certainly – survival means choosing function over fashion, even when it comes to bedding - but the pelts do offer enough padding to break a heavy fall.

Fortunately.

With the Aes out of the elements and safe(r) for now, Loki rolls his own stiff, sore shoulders unhappily and takes stock of his – their? - predicament.

Things could be worse, certainly. He’s visited – and sometimes lived in - this cave with regularity over the past few years, meaning he’s been here often (and long) enough to have made an effort to fit the place out… nicely, really, given a sufficiently loose definition of _nice_. If nothing else he’s stocked it with all manner of useful things; that past industriousness alone will save him a lot of (tiring, wasteful, and risky) magical or (slow and dangerous) physical fetching.

Which is fortunate given the present situation; he’s exhausted, but the task in front of him needs to be tackled without delay anyway.

There’s considerable work to be done. Loki lights the rest of the torches with a broad sweep of one arm before squatting to study the unconscious Aes heaped on the skins in front of him. Present misfortune notwithstanding the man appears hale and strong, powerful even, with broad shoulders and golden hair. In the torches’ ruddy light man’s exposed skin is so waxy and pale, though, that Loki once again wonders if he really has arrived too late to accomplish any saving. Perhaps the man is as good as dead already.

Loki’s gone and gotten himself too invested. What back in the snow had felt rather well deserved now seems wastefully tragic. It feels like failing.

First things first, Loki reminds himself. He needs to get the man’s frozen clothing off carefully… with gentle hands and light seidr, not by yanking viciously to and fro. As he rolls his newfound charge more or less face-up – he’ll never accomplish what he needs to otherwise, not with the Aes lying in a half-prone tangle of clothing and limbs – something tucked in the hollow above the man’s ribs catches the torchlight. Loki picks the tiny bit of gleaming metal carefully free of the frozen leather around it and studies it closely.

It’s a silvery war hammer, precisely crafted, hanging from a braided leather thong. Loki’s fingers tingle. Not just jewelry, then. Protection? He smirks. If that’s what the tiny thing is meant to provide… it’s not that good, is it? He tucks the hammer back into place and goes on about his business.

Tonight, the cave really does needs to be warmer. In its rough center is a sizeable fire pit, a wide, shallow bowl ringed with rocks the size of a giant’s palm. The spellwork to raise a smokeless blaze that not only offers light but also truly warms is long and complicated, although the effort required is more fiddly than genuinely difficult. Consequently it’s several minutes before the pit overflows with rich purple-hued tongues of flame that dance and crackle.

Like all fires this one is beautiful and dangerous. With possible exception of the work involved, Loki loves everything about it. Fire-conjuring was the first real, grown-up spell he mastered as a young student. It’s still special to him, still one of his favorites. He could watch his handiwork for hours. Does, sometimes.

He shakes his head. Not today.

As soon as the fire is self-sustaining, Loki returns to the pile of furs and the frozen Aes sprawled across them. He methodically strips the man down to the skin, carefully checking each newly-uncovered area for injuries but finding none. Boots, strapping, leather, and cloth set aside, Loki rocks back on his heels and studies the body before him. He’s never seen an Aes in the nude before, certainly not this close up, not alive, and not in peacetime. This particular specimen is even more powerfully built than anticipated, heavily muscled and dusted all over with golden fuzz. The finer hairs on the man’s thighs and forearms catch the torchlight and sparkle and glow. The man isn’t much more than Loki’s height, but _solid_ ; broad everywhere Loki is thin and wiry.

Several minutes’ worth of poking and prodding generates no reaction, not even when Loki digs his knuckles sharply into the Aes’ sternum or carefully pries up first one eyelid and then the other. And although both of the man’s eyes appear undamaged their pupils are huge and completely fixed. The tiny rings of iris that surround them are pale blue, several shades lighter than Loki’s skin. They look like ice and sparkle in the firelight. 

He swallows down his worry and keeps working, first heating palm-sized stones around the fire pit’s perimeter and then pulling them away. When they’re cool enough to touch but still quite a bit more than pleasantly warm (at least by Loki’s own standards, and what else could possibly matter?) he places them strategically in all the places his own blood runs close to the surface. Ankles, wrists, neck, groin. Under the man’s powerful arms, pressed right up against the tufts of yellow hair that brush soft and springy against Loki’s fingers. Loki stops and rubs his hands together, shaking off the last echo of such a strange sensation, then pokes curiously at the odd fur again. The hollows beneath his own arms are smooth and bare, as is most of the rest of his body. Loki’s only true hair to speak of springs forth from his scalp, long and heavy. There’s a bit of dark fur and around his genitalia. The latter is common enough; the former, all but unheard of amongst his people. Only the beasts here are this wooly.

For what feels like hours Loki keeps up a steady cycle of stones, swapping old for new again and again as each one cools. Only then, when the Aes is markedly warmer to the touch and has a healthy flush of color back in his skin, does Loki start back in on spellwork… some of it casting, the rest quiet chanting.

Frustratingly, the man does not stir. If not for the slow, slow rise and fall of his chest, Loki would swear he was already gone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki is reminded to be careful what he wishes for.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

Several hours into the (ever more tedious) reanimation process, Loki finds himself yawning, rubbing watering eyes, and thinking this might just be the stupidest yet of all the stupid things he’s undertaken when out of nowhere the man _moves_. It’s just an involuntary twitch, probably, a tiny shoulder muscle jerking. Loki stiffens, senses and body instantly back on high alert. “Be still,” he demands sharply, more out of surprise than anything. From what he can tell, the Aes can’t (yet?) hear or understand him. In case he’s wrong he forces himself to take a deep breath, to make his voice calm and soothing. “It’s the least you can do. By every right,” he reminds the man a little more conversationally, “you should not even be alive… and, alive or no, you certainly should not be here to scare me.”

As Loki talks the man once again lies limp and quiet. But after a little (cautious prodding, first, because dying will solve nothing, and then) adjusting, such that the Aes’ strong arms and legs are arranged amongst the furs in a manner that has to be more comfortable, he does snore faintly and even snuffles a little. “Hush,” Loki admonishes again, despite how (it’s kind of – well, very much – Loki’s fault there’s anything going on to start with and, on top of that) he surely isn’t listening. The man sighs heavily once, and then a second time. His nose wrinkles.

No no no. No. This is _not_ the right time for waking. There’s more seidr first, and layer after layer that of fish-oil salve that reeks but so helps with the pain. Loki’s mind jerks back to the way reheated tissue inevitably burns and throbs and itches; he shudders. “You do not want to be conscious for this part,” he warns the man. Not the blotchy phase, when flesh goes from waxen to dark and finally settles on _normal_. “That much, I can guarantee you.” It’s the honest truth. Loki has had more than a few personal brushes with frostbite and exposure over the years, none of them the least bit pleasant.

After the little lecture the man stops sighing and lies almost perfectly still. Watching his ribcage rise and fall with every shallow breath isn’t the most interesting way to spend an evening, but Loki has to imagine being throttled by him while slumbering would only be that much less amusing.

It’s painfully late. Once the initial excitement of seeing progress fades, Loki finds he cannot stop yawning. The hunger in his belly has long since lost its acuity and faded into the background noise. Simply keeping his eyes open has become an awful chore. Now that he’s relatively confident the man will at least survive (what little is left of) the night, Loki knows he, too, needs to rest. What he doesn’t know is how long he has before the man awakens. He cannot stay on guard forever. After some thought he opts to err on the side of caution; he repositions the Aes again, on one side this time, and securely binds both wrists and ankles with seidr-reinforced soft hide strapping. These ties are designed to hold quarry far larger this this one. Over a lifetime of hiding and hunting he’s found it rarely hurts to be too careful.

By the time the job is done to his satisfaction the man rests peacefully, looking like a child with furs tucked up to his chin, and Loki is shaking with exhaustion. He beds down in his own furry nest a safe distance away – knife firmly in hand, because north of the plain alone (or not alone, but with only a mostly-frozen enemy for company) is not the time to be taking chances – and gives in to what has become a desperate need for sleep.

~

“Ahh!”

Loki startles awake and jolts straight up, only years of training keeping him from shrieking. Instead he curses inside his own head. At some point while he’d slept his cavemate must have regained a degree of consciousness – just now the man is thrashing about frantically, wordless shouts echoing from the cave walls – and doesn’t seem the least bit comfortable. Or peaceful, for that matter.

The cave is chilly, but not unbearably so. Not for him, at least. His guest cum prisoner may view the whole business differently. Loki twists a little to look towards the fire; sure enough, over the course of the night his blue-purple flames have died almost completely down. In case that’s the problem he extends a hand and, with three quick, tiny gestures, coaxes the fire back to its full glory.

It makes no difference. “Shh,” Loki tries when the man only kicks and flails all the harder. He isn’t sure the frantic Aes understands anything he’s saying. “You were nearly dead from the cold,” he tries to explain over a brief break in the man’s yelling. “I’m doing my best to warm you… to take care of both of us,” he goes on, uncertainty making him stiffly formal. “If you will just make the effort to control yourself, I will continue doing what I can to help you.” A little fear has crept back in and Loki’s not wholly convinced that he shouldn’t just have let the- the _thing_ die, but- here they are and he certainly can’t _say_ that, can he? “Shh,” he says instead (again) when the man howls and jerks, tugging against the restraints in what looks like panicked desperation. “You’re okay. You are. I’m right here. Look at me.”

The man hisses. He sits braced against the furs, bound hands up and fisted. His eyes are open now, but his gaze is dull and unfocused. “Who are you?” he demands. Fully conscious, then. “What is it you intend for me?” His accent is strange, harsh and glottal compared to Loki’s own, and his voice is raspy. When he tries to go on, he’s overtaken by a coughing fit that leaves both of them gasping. “Where am I?” the man manages at last. “How is it still nightfall?”

Loki swallows down the urge to fight, or to run. “It isn’t,” he says as calmly as he can manage as the last of a hot wave of adrenaline floods his body. “You were frozen half the night, meaning I was working, and from the looks of it we’ve slept half the day to make up for it.”

“What?” The man stiffens, eyes wider and brows up. “What are you talking about? Who are you,” he demands again. “Why am I bound? What sport is this you’re making?”

“I make no sport,” Loki counters, speaking slowly and with careful precision in case the man’s wits are addled. “And it’s not night,” he repeats. “It’s past midday. Do you understand me?” Right about now is yet another missed mealtime, thanks to how keeping an eye on this near-frozen Aes has left him without any opportunity for hunting or gathering. On cue, his equally angry stomach rumbles.

It’s as if the man doesn’t hear it. “No!” he insists. “Midday? That cannot be!” He blinks frantically and then resumes thrashing about, this time rubbing his face with his hands, followed by first one shoulder and then the other. Finally he stills.

Loki creeps silently closer, keeping just out of striking distance, and waves a hand in front of the man’s face. When there’s no reaction Loki leans in and does it again, this time – carefully, carefully - almost close enough to touch the Aes’ nose. The man’s nostrils flare, but he neither flinches nor lashes out. Loki frowns, puzzled.

If anyone approached Loki this closely, especially someone who could be a sworn enemy, he would be doing everything he could to save himself. And, yes, every visible part of the man’s body is tense. The man is coiled and ready to spring… and yet… nothing.

Perhaps the Aes is faking, trying to lure Loki in too close. If so, his act is utterly convincing; even Loki – prince of deception - cannot smell a hoax.

_Oh._ Loki waves his hand in front of the man again, faster and more enthusiastically. He’s abruptly all but sure of it: _his Aes captive cannot see him_. His heart leaps back up into his throat; this changes everything. “You think it’s dark in here,” he hedges, working hard at sounding calmer than he feels. He’s been out in the wild too long; when it comes to theatrics he’s out of practice.

“Of course I do,” the man snaps. His voice is still rough and scratchy. “It’s pitch black. Who are you?” he asks yet again, this time angrily. “I kid you not: unbind me, or I will kill you.”

“Loose your bonds _AND_ you will kill me, more likely,” Loki counters. “And no, it’s not pitch black. It’s daylight,” he half-lies. Outside, it surely must be. Barring a storm it would be sunny, even. “And it’s well past several mealtimes. Don’t your people eat? Aren’t you hungry?” Personally, Loki’s starving, and he’s not feeding nearly the muscles. This man must be ready to gnaw off an arm.

Whether it is his own, or Loki’s.

For a few long moments the Aes slumps in the furs, neither speaking nor moving. Afterwards he lets out a sharp bark that’s midway between a cough and a gag and thrashes violently back and forth a few times before giving up and returning to viciously yanking at his bindings. The muscles in his shoulders bulge and ripple. “ _Daylight_?” He bares pretty teeth. “You expect me to believe that? Honestly? What kind of fool do you take me for?” He kicks and tugs with renewed force. “Wait,” he rasps, mind evidently catching up with his mouth. “No,” he says, voice fading to barely more than a harsh, raw whisper. “It cannot be.” He touches his face again, this time gently. “No. What have you done to me?”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki and his captive bicker. Of course they do. Also, Loki finds out a thing but talks himself into overlooking it.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

Loki tries and fails to let the man’s accusation go. Taking the high road has never been one of his talents, after all, and he’d like to think that – were their places reversed – he himself would have scraped together a bit more _grace_. “Besides saving your sorry Aes ass from freezing to death, you mean?” he snaps. He hasn’t _done_ anything… except lose a day’s hunting and a night’s sleep to this obnoxious-. Right. He grits his teeth. He is a warrior, not a spoiled brat. “I _expect_ you to recognize the truth, and to admit it,” he instructs. “You are, like it or not, at my mercy.”

Yes, the man is easily big enough to really hurt him – kill him, probably - but Loki’s as confident in his rope skills as he is in his seidr. Worst case he’s quite certain he can outrun his partly-incapacitated foe if necessary. The man is stark naked, in a hostile climate, and not long returned from a very close brush with frozen eternity. Getting back to full strength takes time, no matter the creature; this man is still some distance away from regaining the considerable advantage lost to wallowing in the snow.

This is why Loki spends so much time alone. Being nice to people who don’t deserve it is simply too much work for too little benefit.

So, he doesn’t bother being nice, not to his captive. “It’s dark enough _in here_ ,” he corrects himself, circling back through the conversation to have another run at it. “But that’s not what I meant. If you look to the cave’s mouth” – Loki points off into the distance, forcing himself to speak calmly and clearly like he would to a child – “you can surely see the sun.” The man can’t, of course. Neither of them can. The only things in sight are the torches, the fire, and in the dim light beyond them the shadowy wall. Any view of the sun itself is a long, steep climb above them.

The man tenses; he shudders, all but imperceptibly. Slowly, slowly, he turns to look the wrong way entirely. “Right,” he says softly. “Of course. The sun. There behind you. Of course I can see it.”

Loki conjures a tiny flame in the palm of one hand. He moves his hand closer to the man’s face, then farther away. Nothing has changed; the man’s pupils are huge and fixed. Loki curls his fingers into a fist to snuff the flame and blinks as his own eyes adjust. The man doesn’t react at all. For an instant Loki almost feels- guilty.

“Who are you?” Loki asks, not sure what he’s expecting. He just wants something to call the man. He doesn’t expect the truth, not that he’d recognize it if he got it. They don’t know each other well enough to risk sharing anything of importance. In fact, odds are, they never will. “And what brings one solitary Aes out here to the remote reaches of Jotunheim?”

The man looks oh-so-briefly startled and then frowns. “I am- that is, I go by Thor.”

_Thor_. Loki knows his politics, of course; it’s the crown prince’s name. As if. There’s simply no way the storied Golden Son, the man next in line for Asgard’s throne, would be – could be - wandering the northern reaches of Jotunheim alone and unattended. Maybe Thor is a common Aesir name. Maybe this supposed Thor is bluffing.

“I’m nobody,” the man continues softly, despite how Loki isn’t arguing. It’s an odd thing to claim, oddly claimed; ultimately, it only feeds Loki’s suspicion that this supposed _Thor_ is lying. A lone muscle twitches above the heavy angle of Thor’s jaw. “What’s it to you?” he asks. “Call me what you want. I’m dying here anyway, aren’t I?”

It’s Loki’s turn to pull a face, one he knows Thor cannot see. “I think you had best not,” he tells Thor airily. “That would be terribly ungrateful. Look,” he adds, wincing a bit at his own choice of words when Thor’s expression registers a flash of shocked hurt and then shutters. “I’m nobody too. But regardless of that I’m hungry. Stay put,” he orders, as if Thor has any choice in the matter, “and I will do what I can to catch us something. You really ought to eat, you know. We both should.”

Thor sucks in a huge breath and then coughs, several times. “Who are _you_?” he rasps once the coughing dies back down.

Loki laughs at- at everything. At nothing. Thor is stuck here. He could boast of being Laufey’s son. He doesn’t. No one would believe him anyway. “You know what? I think that’s none of your business.”

Thor takes a slow, measured breath and manages not to cough this time. “I could make you tell me,” he says, and Loki laughs.

“Oh, please,” Loki scoffs, pride making him bold. “Hardly.”

~

It’s so nice to get away. To be out in the sunshine. Loki doesn’t bother finding something with fur; it’s simpler and more reliable to fall back on fishing.

~

“Be still,” Loki orders for what feels like the fiftieth time. It’s well past suppertime, neither of them has eaten much of anything in days, and Thor – still bound at the ankles and wrists, perhaps for his own protection as much as Loki’s– won’t stop thrashing about and bellowing. “I can’t cook us dinner if you won’t stay still,” Loki grumbles when Thor finally quiets briefly. “You were very nearly frozen, you know? It only goes to reason that from time to time you’re going to hurt a little.”

“It isn’t that,” the man tells him. Something in Thor’s voice is- different now. Loki shivers.

“Isn’t what?” Loki blinks. He frowns at the flames, at the sizzling meat. At Thor.

“It’s not pain. You wouldn’t understand. Look,” Thor says, going mostly limp in his bindings and letting his hair fall across his face. “I’m done. If you intend to kill me, just do it and get it over with. I’ve no more patience left today.”

Loki can’t help but let out a startled little huff. “Seriously? After everything, now you want me to kill you because you’re- what, exactly? Bored? Unhappy? Tired of being here?”

Thor’s head snaps up. “I don’t want to be played with,” he growls. “You’ve won. Give me an honorable death. I’ve done nothing to you, after all. Surely you can find it in yourself to grant me this one thing in return.”

“Excuse me? I saved your life, you know, missed meal after meal, and then went out and chased us down some dinner. How is it I owe you anything further?” Loki sits back on his heels. With the fire going full-on the cave is feeling more than a little too warm for his tastes, especially now with all this arguing, but – struggles or no – Thor is still shivering occasionally. They really, really need to get some food in their bellies. After which, if Loki were only just marginally more irritated, he might drag Thor back to that snowy nest and abandon the ungrateful wretch there permanently. Seen in that light the whole adventure seems like a lot of work for nothing, really. Loki grits his teeth. “We need to eat,” he points out, stiffly. “I’m not going to make up my mind whether or not to put you to death on anything less than a full belly.”

~

“Who- what are you,” Thor tries yet again. Loki ignores the question, pretending instead that squatting by the fire serving up pan-fried fish – he likes it well enough raw, but Thor needs warm food after last night’s adventures – is consuming all his attention.

“You tell me,” Loki counters, spitefully, when Thor (re-re-re-)repeats the question. “What do I _look_ like to you?”

Thor contemplates the question for so long that, were the situation different, Loki might almost worry about him. “This is what I mean,” he grumbles at last. “You already have your answers, and all the advantage. I’m bested. Bound, helpless, at your mercy. Have some honor, nameless creature. Do not toy with me.”

“That was quite a little speech.” Loki grins nastily. The effect, of course, is lost on Thor. “Tell me… how does it work on your other enemies?”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mealtime, finally.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

“You don’t sound like a frost giant,” Thor says flatly, on the heels of what’s quickly become an uncomfortable silence.

That stings. Loki claps, slowly and louder than necessary. “Bravo, bravo. I’m impressed,” he adds as the hurt fades just enough that, in its place, the tiniest seed of an idea has room to unfurl. Still, that was low. He’s peeved. “You Aes aren’t nearly as dull as our history books claim, are you?”

It takes some hitching and shifting, and probably quite a bit of roughed-up skin given the cave’s rocky floor, but Thor does manage to half turn, half roll away and put the tense curve of his naked back between them. “Do not mock me,” Thor says, and for the first time something in his voice gives Loki pause. The big man has a lot of fight left in him; even so he has to be hurting, and afraid. “You- you sound- different than the Jotuns I’ve met previously. That’s all.”

“I’m sorry,” Loki says, surprised to find that he actually is. Thor huffs. “No, I am,” Loki insists, even though the bright little flash of guilt is already fading. “Here,” he offers. “The fish is ready.” He scoops some out of the cooking vessel and into a small stone bowl. “It’s hot,” he warns as he sets the bowl beside Thor’s hip. “Give it time to cool and- and I’ll feed you.”

After another long, ugly silence Thor clears his throat. “I don’t expect you to believe me,” he starts, pausing briefly to cough again, “but I wasn’t here to hurt you- to hurt anyone… just to study the parts of this realm where my people rarely set foot. There was no ill intent. I swear it.” He shifts against the heap of furs, rear slid off onto the stone during his recent struggle but feet still tangled in the bedding. “I can’t feel my hands and- and I’d rather not be _fed_ if you don’t mind. Can- will you unbind me?”

It’s stupidly risky and Loki knows it, but he lives for a challenge and can’t resist taking one. Perhaps someone will recite precisely that at his funeral. Perhaps he will simply die naked and alone. Not missed. Forgotten. “Here,” he offers, prodding Thor’s shoulder. “Turn back towards me.” After another long pause, Thor does. “Just your hands,” Loki warns. Not that there’s any point. A half-freed Thor will just untie its own feet anyway.

Thor holds his bound wrists out. Without comment Loki works the ties loose.

Neither of them speaks afterwards, either. Loki doesn’t offer to rub the circulation back into Thor’s pale fingers. Fortunately, Thor doesn’t ask him to. Once the fish has cooled enough for eating Loki figures he’ll be feeding Thor anyway.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

If he didn’t know better, and he does, Thor would swear his- his what? Companion? Captor? The latter, probably, even now that he’s been partially freed and could perhaps escape with enough effort spent. Captor, then. Thor would swear his _captor_ feels sorry for him. The last thing he wants or needs is pity, not from himself and certainly not from others. He doesn’t point that out. Instead, as he shakes and rubs his painfully stiff hands, he sternly reminds himself that he and his captor-host do not know and would be foolish to trust one another.

“What can I call you,” he tries anyway. He needs something to distract him from the ache. From the tingling and burning.

His captor _laughs_. “What? Oh, you can call me _winner_.”

Thor clears his throat. On the fly it’s hard to strike a reasonable balance between annoyance and fear. His captor had been- nicer, recently. More helpful, less cruel. Pity or no, now that it’s gone Thor finds he misses it. “And what exactly is it that you’ve won?”

“I’m not certain yet.” While he waits for his captor to explain, Thor can hear the heavy clunk and scrape of cooking utensils. “I’ll let you know once you and I have spent more time together. Here,” his captor says again, voice coming from close by now. At this distance Thor can smell the sharp brininess of the fish; it brings back memories of a long-ago tutor who was forever lecturing him on the subject of Jotunheim’s incredibly salty waters. Something about their not freezing over in the cold of winter. The whole topic had bored him at the time. Now, he dearly wishes he’d paid more attention. “Cheer up,” his captor orders, nudging at Thor’s mouth with a warm piece of meat. “Eat something.”

“Fine,” Thor snaps, jerking away and then holding out cupped hands in what sounds like the direction of the man’s voice. “But give it here. I told you before: I do not wish for you to feed me.” He’s already feeling helpless to the verge of tears. He doesn’t want to be coddled.

The rough stone bowl is almost too warm in his painful hands. He’s abruptly aware just how _empty_ he is, though; up close the fish smells even better, and his stomach rumbles. He’s not up to delicacy yet; when his captor tries and fails passing a metal spoon, Thor acts as if he’d meant to drop it.

They dig – literally, in his case - into their meal, Thor gamely pretending he can see what he’s eating and his dining companion (executioner, probably, but there’s no good to come of wasting a perfectly serviceable dinner thinking that way) munching away noisily. Thor isn’t sure he’s ever been quite so aware of the loudness of anyone’s chewing before, even when dining among off-realm ambassadors. Then again, meals in Asgard are a social time; he’s probably never eaten with others in such quiet surroundings. The fish is rich and filling, buttery-smooth on his tongue, and any momentary fear he’d had of poison falls in the face of his own hunger. Not more than three scoops in he’s sucking the last oily bits off his fingers and reaching blindly out for more.

“Hungry, are we?” His captor laughs again, some of the bitter edge gone. “You did have quite the bad day.” Thor tries to be patient as he refills the bowl. “Eat up. It’s good for you.”

Thor does just that, until he’s fit to burst. It isn’t until he can no longer fight back the urge to relieve himself, well after their meal is wholly eaten, that he asks to have his ankles unbound as well. “You can tie me up afterwards,” he promises, having recently decided that his mother’s tactics suit this situation better than his father’s. “That is, if it makes you feel safer.”

“I hardly think,” Thor’s captor says, working at the strapping around Thor’s ankles with fingers so cold their touch is nearly painful, “that I need to be kept safe from the likes of you.”

Once the initial misery passes – first use after immobility is always unpleasant, no matter how many times one has suffered thus before – it nearly feels good to stretch and to stumble to his feet. He stifles a smile. It’s warm enough wherever they are that he can almost pretend he isn’t naked and sightless in this godsforsaken frozen wasteland.

Almost, but not quite.

“Oh no no, not there. Use the- what do you call it in Asgard, the toilet?” Thor’s captor calls to him – too loudly - as he feels his way around. “No, over there! If you shit right here by my fire pit I may just change my mind and kill you!”

Thor growls in frustration. He has no patience for games in his present state. His present state, which is fast becoming an emergency.

“Fine,” his captor huffs. _Stomp stomp stomp_ , and icy fingers nudge his elbow. “Don’t be that way. I’ll show you.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the truth is just easier.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

Thor can’t quite shake the feeling he’s going to die.

If not today, soon. If not from the initial exposure, or the natural progression of whatever weirdness robbed him of his sight, then at the cool, strong hands of his captor.

Because of course the man will kill him. Who wouldn’t?

Right now, Thor knows, he is nothing but a burden, one trapped in a place where burdens cannot be suffered gladly. This realm is too poor, its environment too harsh. Its Casket of Ancient Winters seized during the last war, Jotunheim can barely scrape together the resources to support its own people. In fact, from what Thor’s often heard, even in the best years more than a few Jotnar starve. And while the summer’s warm months have (had?) been mild enough - as icy summers go; there’s something wrong with that, Thor thinks, at a very basic level - there is no way of knowing what the colder seasons will bring.

If his captor knew who he was Thor supposes he might be considered useful for purposes of extortion: to help convince Asgard’s King and Queen that the casket should be returned to Utgard. Even then, put bluntly, he could be used now and killed later. As it stands, he’s really no more than a useless drain on insufficient resources. Prisoners with no intrinsic value aren’t worth the expense and nuisance of keeping, especially when no one’s around to recognize the pointed setting of a good example.

Thor’s seen no evidence his captor knows he’s royalty. No reluctant, misplaced fealty, obviously, but also no gloating beyond a few brief and basic jabs over tiny won/lost battles. To his captor, Thor is doubtless just a random, unfortunate Aesir man.

Thus, no matter how he turns the situation around in his mind, Thor can’t see his way through to a positive outcome. Even if he can somehow engineer an escape - which means clothing himself against the cold, not to mention learning to navigate his way out of- of wherever it is they’re staying (stealthily, without smacking into things or tripping and falling over and over again, like he always does and has been doing what feels like nonstop since he’d recovered enough to stand) – he will surely die well within a fortnight out in the endless snow.

A fortnight. Thor laughs, sharp and without humor. Who does he think he’s kidding? If he lasted the day he’d be lucky.

Even if he could somehow stumble his way outside alone and survive long enough to call for aid, there’s no guarantee he hasn’t wandered far enough north to be outside Heimdall’s reach. And if he has, he lacks any means by which to correct the situation; a sightless man can’t tell north from south. He would doubtless freeze to death an hour’s walk from this place, unable to find his way back to his captor’s lair and without any way to get home.

Then again, he could stumble straight into one of Jotunheim’s many crevices and drop to his death without further ado.

Thor shakes his head, violently. Hot-cold tears spill over at last. The whole business is enough to make him crazy.

~

Fortunately for everyone – all two of them - self-pity and lingering, crippling sadness aren’t really in Thor’s nature.

After another few good sleeps, when his captor has yet to hurt him (or even put him in situations where he feels afraid), Thor snaps out of his funk and stops wasting so much time worrying about dying. He needs, after all, to concern himself with living instead. While he may have been born to be king, there is no place in Asgard for a blind warrior. Yes, of course, as a people the Aesir do care for their enfeebled… but as a sign of respect for a life of service, or as recompense for injuries suffered defending the realm.

Not for lying down – young, healthy, and in the middle of an ill-fated walking tour of Jotunheim - and waking up sightless, surely.

If his days as a warrior are over, Thor knows that to have any chance of taking up Odin’s crown and staff he must first find other ways to be useful.

With that end in mind he forces himself to abandon the last of his fruitless moping and starts carefully exploring instead, first teaching himself to walk with more confidence and to find his way around without incident. His still-nameless captor is surprisingly helpful, never once changing the way the cave – for it is a cave, Thor quickly establishes once he can move more freely about it – is provisioned and not blocking his path with dangers or obstacles.

Once he stops using all of his energy to fight what _just is_ , too, Thor gets quite a bit farther. His hearing sharpens, as does his sense of smell. He can identify and locate movement at more than thirty paces. His captor finally begins trusting his safety (him?) enough to leave the cave for more than the time it takes to catch dinner. And when Thor’s finally spent long enough in naught but his own company to be lonely, the two of them start talking. Really talking, not just bickering and sniping at one another. They swap (carefully edited, but still enjoyable) stories about growing up in such vastly different settings. Before long they reach a place of peace that feels almost _friendly_.

It’s a nice balance, independent time against companionship. Sometimes Thor almost forgets he’s essentially a prisoner.

~

As they get to know one another better Thor and his captor settle into a workable routine. It’s a good thing; unless - _until_ , because this _cannot_ be the way his life ends - he recovers and returns home, he will only survive if they stick together. That’s certainly more likely to happen if the two of them aren’t stealthily awaiting the opportunity to free themselves (or, worse yet, the universe) of one another.

Their days are quiet. While his captor hunts Thor picks up after himself and studies the cave. The rest of the time the two of them spend together, sleeping and cooking, eating and cleaning up. Whenever they reach a point where they can no longer stand themselves, Thor’s captor melts ice in a low stone basin so they can bathe. They take turns smoothing fresh-smelling salve over their faces and hands. Afterwards Thor – fingers made newly nimble by his lack of sight – works the tangles from long, thick hair while his captor hums. And as they work and eat and wash, they talk even more. Thor quickly learns the man is no barbarian; instead his captor is bright, educated, and full of opinions. They both are. Their not-so-gentle verbal sparring passes the time quite nicely.

Thor finds their idle chatter holds at bay the fears and worries that might otherwise overtake him. He learns to relax.

One by one the two of them drop their pretenses. With each admission life gets a little simpler.

At last, heart hammering in his chest, Thor finally admits that he cannot see.

To his great surprise, his captor does not laugh. Does not rub it in that, obviously, they’ve both known this all along. “I’m Loki,” the man tells him instead. “I’m a sorcerer. I- I live here.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Living and learning, at least a little.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

No two beings are alike. It makes life complicated.

The more time they spend together, the better Loki seems to grasp the fact – and it is indeed fact, Thor’s certain, and not simple weakness of character – that even an Aes such as himself (one wholly accustomed to solo adventures) cannot both stay sane and sit endlessly, silently idle. It is not in his nature. He needs to be busy the bulk of the time… and, when he’s not busy, he’s happiest socializing.

Conversely, Thor comes to understand that Loki truly does need time alone in which to practice seidr (and sometimes just to sit); unlike Thor Loki does not seem to be naturally gregarious and appears to often prefer the company of his own thoughts. In deference to that Thor tries not to bother him just for the sake of something to do.

Not that Thor really lacks for enough to do anyway, especially now that he’s feeling better. Two people (sans servants) clutter and soil a space surprisingly quickly and, even when things inside the cave are more or less under control, out in the cold there’s invariably more than enough work to keep them both busy. It’s fine. Staying occupied is good for Thor, now more than ever. Rather than letting himself tumble (back, yes, but he’d rather not admit that) into a deep, ugly well of despair – not in what is still hostile, enemy territory, no matter what his family and advisors might think from the warm safety of Asgard – he instead challenges himself to find new ways to tackle the basics.

He starts with simplest, most essential activities: tracking the passage of time, safely gauging the weather while not falling victim thereto, and preparing food without burning himself or lopping off half a finger. He might still not survive on his own – all right, would not, for he cannot safely venture far enough afield to hunt and would surely be unable to catch anything once he got there – but Thor is determined not to be a useless burden.

Over time he finds he’s gotten better and better at making himself useful. He keeps a calendar on the cave wall, using Loki’s daily routine as a guide. He carefully carves tiny lines - representing days; it’s an imprecise method compared to following the sun’s daily course, sure, but the longer he spends in Loki’s company the less like Thor thinks it is that Loki’s deliberately throwing his measurements off by extending (or collapsing) the time between meals and sleeps artificially - into the cold stone, and has taught himself to read them back with the increasingly sensitive tips of his fingers.

While he’s not (yet) flawless with the weather, more often than not he’s able to step out of the cave’s mouth and make a reasonable estimation just by sniffing the air and listening to the snow crackling beneath the soft shoes Loki’d lent (made?) him. Thor carefully never ventures out of earshot alone – magic aside, Loki isn’t Heimdall and cannot simply whisk Thor back from wherever stubbornness or stupidity might take him – but making his way around the sloping ground near the cave’s mouth isn’t substantially different sightless than it would be at the worst of your average Jotun snowstorm.

When it comes to (not) hunting Thor can clean most anything Loki brings home to eat and – in a rather morbid way, yes, but they do have to fill their stomachs somehow and a snowy realm isn’t exactly ripe for gathering – has managed to learn quite a lot about small Jotun creatures by carefully feeling his way around their insides and outsides. He can guess the age of a Jotun hare by the soft fluff of its coat, and its sex by its internal anatomy. Most important, he has leaned to work slowly and precisely to avoid nicking the guts and spoiling their dinner. Loki can be prone to unpleasant (if deserved) fits of temper; rewarded effort and an unspoiled dinner collectively make for much better company.

Ultimately Thor’s helpfulness begins to pay off in ways he hadn’t anticipated. When the day has gone well, Loki is happy… and it turns out that a happy Loki is far more willing to spend time chatting lazily after dinner than a frustrated, angry one might be. It’s in front of the fire, when they’ve both eaten their fill and the cooking pots have been scooped full of snow and are soaking, that Thor begins to get answers to his many questions.

“Why can’t I see,” he asks Loki one evening after they’ve scraped the last of a thick, delicious stew out of the little stone bowls Loki always favors. “I was fine, and then I wasn’t, in the literal blink of an eye. This is your realm; you know it best. What do you think happened to me?”

“Hmm.” Loki’s voice is too melodic; that, plus the full head of hair and the compact body, Thor just can’t resolve with the mental image of the frost giants he’s met previously. He sets all of that aside for another time. Otherwise, it will only distract him. “Tell me again,” Loki says, from across the pile of skins. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Thor’s memory of what he’s come to call _the incident_ can’t possibly be anything close to perfect. He knows the shock of a near-death experience, which he’s (with some reluctance even now) stopped disputing Loki’s claim that his time in the snow must have been, can cause persistent and even permanent amnesia… he’s seen it in his father’s soldiers and in Asgard’s prisoners of war, in the halls of healing, time and time again. He’s even seen it in himself on occasion; incautious as he sometimes is, this is hardly his first serious injury. Still, his own recollections are all he and Loki have to go on. “Something knocked me down,” he says. “An animal, it might have been. It made a noise, and then it bowled me over and sprayed- or maybe spit at me. As far as I remember I never got a look at it.”

Loki hums again. “And you were near your cave? The one you’d been living in?”

“Maybe?” Thor frowns. Everything he recalls is- fuzzy. Annoyingly vague and formless, as much so as the beast itself. “Yes, I think so. I can’t have been more than a few steps away. Just standing there?” He thinks he remembers looking forward to coming home after a long day, but maybe that was a different time. “Ugh,” he grumbles, slapping the stone by his feet. “Something about my boots? A broken staff? Argh! I just don’t remember.”

“Well,” Loki says, sounding a bit frustrated as well, “you know, that doesn’t give me very much to go on.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor tries - and fails - to figure Loki out.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

“But what do you look like?”

It’s become Thor’s go-to question, time and time again. He’s got nothing left but patience and stubborn determination; he’s going keep asking until he gets a satisfactory answer.

The two of them have been holed up in the cave for at least a fortnight now, trapped by what Loki’s described as _quite the blizzard_ , and are both getting more than a little stir-crazy. Early on Thor’d kept himself occupied measuring the snow with his hands, carefully patting the densest bottom layers and working his way up to the fluffiest uppermost sections, but even before the cave’s mouth had been completely obscured Loki wouldn’t hear of his digging through and venturing out.

He’d be (stupidly, yes) offended, except Loki hasn’t left the cave in days either. The wall of snow had gradually compressed into a rough mass of solid ice, and suppressing the nagging voice in his head – the one that says they’ll both die here – has become a near-constant struggle.

Without hunting there isn’t nearly enough to do.

Best of all, thanks to the storm they’ve no option but to relieve themselves indoors. Even emptying a vessel outside isn’t an option with the mouth of the cave blocked: Loki’s stuck cleaning up after them both via seidr. It’s not an arrangement Thor likes at all. Loki insists the shallow pit – no chamber pots here, and no running water; not that they have either in the wilds of Asgard, but he keenly (if unfairly) feels the lack regardless – is hidden from view, and Thor has run his own hands all along the wall that ostensibly hides it, but the entryway seems wide and the walls low for someone of his stature. For all Thor knows Loki watches his each and every defecation.

Thor’s bored, after all. Why wouldn’t Loki be?

Loki sighs, then yawns very loudly. So, he _is_ bored; with so little to keep either of them busy, there’s no way he’s truly tired. “Not all that different from you, I suppose,” Loki grumbles, like he’s beyond sick of discussing the whole subject. The subject they haven’t _discussed_ at all. “Not like the typical Jotun. No blue, no ancestry lines. No jutting bones or craggy skin. You may think you’ve seen everything this realm has to offer; you tell me you’ve come here enough in your time, and my people to Asgard. But trust me… I’m like nothing you’ve ever known.”

“You’re lucky, then,” Thor plows on, because he cannot help himself. This part has bothered him since childhood. “For not having them. Ancestry lines, I mean,” he clarifies when Loki hums a puzzled little _hmm_? “From what my tutors taught me, the lines are cut into the Jotun babies’ skin.” Thor shudders. “My friends claim it’s done with an ice blade. Is that true? I always thought it sounded horrible. Barbaric. No insult intended,” he adds, quickly, because he really does want to know. His father should be proud; for once in his life he wants to learn rather than fight. Honestly.

“Right,” Loki says drily. “No insult intended,” he adds, imitating Thor’s accent with biting accuracy. “None at all, I’m sure. Good thing for you I’m not really a _frost giant_.” There’s an edge in his voice, one that hasn’t been there recently, and he laughs when Thor frowns. “I have seen it done,” he explains. “There’s a ritual. When it’s time, the healers give the baby something to stop the pain. The lines are laid down – or called out, more accurately – with seidr.” He laughs again. “Despite what it seems you’ve been told, from what I’ve seen personally, frost giants don’t go around hacking up their progeny with knives.” He snorts. “Ice or otherwise.”

“That’s a relief,” Thor says, ignoring Loki’s tone, because it is. The thought of bleeding blue babies shrieking frantically has been the stuff of nightmares. He walks his fingers idly along the skin of his own arm from wrist to bicep, where it disappears under a worn (rather smelly but comfy) pelt: soft hair, a fine network of long-healed scars, shifting muscle underneath. He lingers on the larger scar near his elbow, raised and hairless, where Sif had sliced him open a couple of years ago. He’d deserved it. The healers tell him it will flatten over time. He almost hopes it doesn’t; it’s a convenient reminder of his own shortcomings.

Thor loses himself in his own thoughts, slow and a bit drowsy… which is when (and likely why) an idea pops into his head and he acts without thinking. “Here,” he suggests to Loki, curling his fingers in invitation. “Hold out your hand. Let me touch you.” While he still helps untangle Loki’s hair - and has even patted a shoulder through furs on occasion - Loki efficiently dodges any movement that might result in skin on skin. Similarly, Loki hasn’t laid a hand on Thor since the moment he’d won his freedom. Not that it’s been a problem… these days Thor follows Loki’s voice, never needing touch to steer him.

Thor just thinks he could “see” Loki better after _feeling_ him.

“NO,” Loki snaps, too loudly. Bowls clatter and scrape against the cave floor as he hastens to put more space between them.

Thor waits for an explanation; none comes. He waits a bit longer, counting his own breaths to keep himself quiet. Nothing. It’s clear they’re once again done talking. “Fine,” he huffs. “Suit yourself.” He gets to his feet with a loud exhale that’s half frustrated sigh and half groan, and stretches before flopping down on his nest of furs. It’s far longer than he likes before sleep overtakes him.

~

Some four months later – assuming Loki’s habit of rising and turning in is a daily one, as it’s the only way (a blind cave dweller has) of telling time – Thor finally gets to touch Loki’s skin… and only then by accident. He’s at the cave mouth, busily shaking out his furs, when a sudden gust of wind sends him stumbling backwards. He catches a heel on a rough bit of ice and grabs frantically at nothing, desperate to avoid a nasty fall.

Except _nothing_ turns out to be, well, Loki. Thor catches his balance and takes a step back, adrenaline still pumping through him. “Unhand me,” Loki squawks, pushing and swatting at him with icy hands that- that actually _do_ feel smaller than his own. Thor reaches out and catches Loki by one surprisingly slender arm. Although far from warm, it’s not nearly as cold as Loki’s fingers. He holds on, trying to quiet his nerves and catch his breath, as Loki claws and kicks him.

“What?” Thor doesn’t let go. Judging by the (success of his grip, and the) cool, narrow elbow he’s clutching, Loki is a bit more- _delicate_ than he expected. “Did I hurt you?” His own arms sting where Loki’s nails raked them, and one of his shins will doubtless swell.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Loki snarls. Thor smiles. He lets Loki jerk free… and by now there’s no question both of them know it. Perhaps Loki is another Aes, then. No. Maybe one of the Vanir? Or not… Thor doesn’t know what to make of the coolness.

Whatever Loki is, he’s clearly told the truth; he is no frost giant.

~

“What are you? Seriously, you’re not like any frost giant I’ve ever met,” Thor blurts out between dinner and bed. Loki hasn’t spoken to him since their impromptu wrestling match, and Thor is almost painfully lonely.

Loki snorts. “And I’m sure you’ve enjoyed spending time with so many,” he says, all sharp-edged sarcasm. “Because your people always come to Jotunheim in peace, to talk, and no Jotun delegation visiting Asgard has ever feared for its own safety.”

Thor blinks at the venom in Loki’s voice. It’s an odd experience. After all this time he still isn’t used to blinking and seeing _nothing_. Nothing whatsoever, not even the swirls of light and color a long-ago tutor taught him blind Aes typically see. His own lost sight isn’t like that; everything is completely gone, as though his brain had never learned to make use of his eyes at all. “I thought we were past that,” he says softly.

“It isn’t the sort of thing we can _get_ past,” Loki spits. “If you could see me, I’d be dead by now.”

There isn’t any point in pushing, not with Loki so upset, and maybe sharing the truth would be worse anyway. Because in actuality Thor _knows_ : given the soft, cool smoothness of the arm he’d touched earlier, if he could see Loki, he’d simply want to keep looking and looking.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki has too much to think about, and it's making his head hurt.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

Loki’s never chosen – let alone _had_ , and this definitely tastes more like _obligation_ \- to share his hideaways before; not this cave, not the one further south nearer the best fishing, and certainly not the hidden passageways he’s long used to move amongst Yggrdrasil’s branches. The promise of time alone is a large part of what’s inevitably brought him out here into the wild… an opportunity to enjoy peace and quiet, far from the bustle of his father’s court, without anyone wondering why he’s silent or withdrawn. Without anyone making it clear he’s unwelcome.

Now, he has all the company he could ever want and then some. He hates it, but he likes it too.

The former he expects, but the latter surprises him. He’s not quite sure what to make of it.

Following the rather poor first impression, Loki has to admit (not out loud, obviously) that Thor has made good, steady progress since their first days together. He gets around the cave nimbly without help now, and only rarely bangs his head or smacks a shin on something. And when he does slip up and stumble into whatever happens to be nearby, he takes it all in stride with far more grace than Loki could ever hope to muster. At worst, Thor yelps and grumbles under his breath. And then he _learns_ from his carelessness and moves about with renewed caution.

Loki, on the other hand, would be cursing as loudly as possible. Which he’s been told is quite loudly indeed. And then he would be stomping around, throwing whatever was within reach, and quite probably hurting himself further. Whether he’d be caught dead admitting it or not, _childish_ invariably wins out over _smart_ when the limits of his patience are exceeded.

That’s also a good part of why he spends so much time here.

Progress or no, though, no blind man (even a Jotun, one of which Thor so, so obviously is not) can safely navigate the northern wilds of Jotunheim. While things have improved to the point where Loki can (and does; they get hungry, after all, and it’s not like he can conjure endless food out of nowhere) head out on hunting mini-expeditions, often for the better part of a day, moving on from the cave altogether simply isn’t possible. At least not until something changes… where _something_ could mean anything from an improvement in Thor’s still-non-existent eyesight to the argument that finally drives Loki past the point of slaughtering his guest. Loki smirks. Inside his own head he’s kidding.

Mostly.

Much as it might be easier _not_ to be. Loki sighs. He’s better than that, sadly.

So. Until something changes they are stuck here together.

It’s not _all_ bad. Loki cannot deny the truth; he is a curious creature. So much time spent in sometimes-painfully-tight proximity has afforded him a fascinating opportunity to study his Aes visitor, up close and a little too personal. Thor is surprisingly graceful for someone carrying so much muscle; unlike Loki’s brothers, who stomp their way through Utgard with enough force to crack floors and tilt pillars, Thor moves about the cave with the smooth, fluid motions of a swordsman. Or a dancer. All in all it’s rather pleasant to watch. When he isn’t kept busy hunting or cooking Loki has taken to sitting back and enjoying the view as Thor strides to and fro - with ever-increasing confidence - across their improvised home (prison).

Things are going along nicely, all in all, until Thor stumbles at the cave mouth and _grabs_ Loki.

To say Loki’s shocked is to grossly understate the situation. He only just manages to take the edge off his cold skin time; nursing other people’s frost burns is not high on Loki’s list of favorite pastimes, and it’s not like there’s anyone _else_ here to tend to it for him. On top of which, he’s still leaning towards pretending – continuing to pretend, yes – that he isn’t blood Jotun. Given that, freezing Thor’s hand would be outright idiotic; he simply couldn’t blow his intended cover more completely.

Loki can’t quite catch his breath. The close call leaves him tense. Rattled. And when he’s keyed up, he’s angry.

Even with the hasty temperature shift Thor’s fingers are warm on Loki’s wrist, though not quite painfully so. His callouses drag across Loki’s skin. The unfortunate thing, though, is this: Loki is a runt; Thor clearly isn’t. Thor’s fingers are long, his palms large. He can wrap the whole of his hand around Loki’s wrist – forearm, elbow - like one could a child’s. Can, and does, and both of them pause as they note it. Loki can only hope the ensuing wrestling match, which costs them each more than a few nasty scrapes and bruises and leaves Loki with blood and skin under every fingernail, is enough to make Thor forget.

Yes, he won’t be “mistaken” for a frost giant. No, he doesn’t want to be mistaken for lunch or dinner either.

~

Forget? Hah. If only. Surprise, surprise: Thor doesn’t.

Of course not. Nothing in Loki’s life ever goes that smoothly. “What are you,” Thor asks him, yet again, three days after their cave mouth spat and Loki sighs. While, yes, one increasingly tiny bit of him still delights in seeing just how long he can drag out this particular discussion, the far larger remainder is utterly sick of it. “What difference does it make?” he snaps. Thor is far too interested in this. The whole topic is irritating. _Thor_ is irritating. “I’m a stranded traveler,” Loki says, which isn’t nearly as much of a lie as it should be. He’s _stranded_ , all right, first by (regrettable) curiosity and then by his own (even more regrettable) sense of duty. “Much as you are. Let it go already. If – not when - the time is right, I promise you I’ll share my story.” Thor’s mouth settles into a thin, pale line and Loki expects another fight… in the end, though, Thor just nods.

“Okay,” he agrees. Loki blinks, startled. And then, out of nowhere, Thor adds: “your skin is very smooth.”

For that, Loki (warms with angry swiftness and) slaps him.

~

When he wakes up Loki is still angry, so much so that he just can’t stay in the cave. He packs a few days’ worth of rations – things are fine; Thor can manage - and sets off at the first hint of dawn.

The rhythm of Thor’s breathing had subtly shifted as Loki’d collected food and water, but he hadn’t admitted to being awake and Loki in turn hadn’t challenged him. Even when Loki had purposefully made enough noise for three people, Thor had neither moved nor spoken. In the end, Loki had huffed loudly and then stomped out without saying goodbye.

For the first few minutes he’d felt angry and righteous and smug.

Now, though, as he plods along through the freshly-fallen thigh-high snow Loki only feels- well, guilty. Guilty and annoyed. He’s frustrated with Thor for putting him in this position, and only that much more so with himself for giving in to it.

Thor is strong and hale and _helpless_ , and yet _he’s_ coping well. He’s learned how to take care of himself again, as best he probably can, and is doing so with very little resentment. Whereas Loki is as bitter as the day is long… and then some.

It must be awfully hard to have lost all sight. Add to that being off-realm and, if their fortunes were reversed, Loki knows he personally would be terrified. Not to mention stir-crazy, cooped up in a cave without means of escape (or even much in the way of entertainment). Thor seems to be taking it all in stride, though; except for the occasional outburst – and these days that’s typically thanks to something _Loki_ has started – Thor smiles and learns and- and goes about each day acting like nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

Thor has been spending his days productively: learning to carve and read runes, keeping his powerful body fit – using nothing more than heavy, smooth stones and precise movements – and finding what minimal joy there might be in his surroundings. Now that he’s settled in and evidently resigned himself to being stuck here, Thor has clearly set his mind on _being fine with it_. Too, he’s educated. No Jotun has ever dubbed the Realm Eternal’s rank and file a bunch of scholars but, clearly, there had been at least this one among them. 

So. Loathe though he may be to admit it, Loki’s finding he rather likes sharing his days with a cheerful, smart, interesting (and not entirely unattractive, at least as the Aesir go; fine, there you have it) companion. He can almost pretend they’re friends, that something warm and sentimental has developed between them.

That’s a dangerous, dangerous train of thought; Loki knows he cannot let himself entertain it. But out here hunting (or not) alone, he struggles to think of anything else.

Loki shakes his head in angry frustration. He’s going to get hurt if he wanders around so distracted. It’s just not safe to- to _wallow_ , not out here in the wild. He screams into the wind. It’s stupid. He really needs to stop this.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Left alone in the cave, Thor has too much time to think.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

These days, when Loki is off hunting, Thor normally makes himself useful with ease. And while today is no exception workwise – he drags their many sleeping furs up to the cave’s mouth and, pleased to find the air calm and the sun almost warm upon his face, beats each in turn against his newish home’s icy-rocky outside surface until the soft pelt is smooth and clean-feeling against his hands before carefully carrying the lot back inside – his usual _ease_ has deserted him.

Thor drags furs up the stone ramp and runs back over yesterday’s conversation. He beats furs next to the cave entrance and thinks again of Loki’s wrist slim and cool within the circle of his fingers. He piles furs neatly, well beyond the point where snow blows in, and hefts the lot of them onto his shoulder… all the while thinking of the sharp, hurt-sounding anger in Loki’s voice. He carries everything back down to the sleeping area and wonders what Loki is thinking.

It isn’t until all of the bedding is back where it belongs and he has long since moved on to scraping fire scale off the bottoms of their – okay, _Loki’s_ , but they do both make good use of them – cooking vessels with one of the small, porous rocks that nestle comfortably in the palm of his hand that Thor realizes he’s really hungry. Famished, even.

He sets the last of the bowls aside and pushes a bit stiffly to his feet. He’s probably been sitting here by the fire pit for hours, scraping and rubbing and thinking; he’s missed lunch for certain, and quite possibly dinner. The flames are low – and the cave chilly – without Loki here to feed them.

It has to be late. _Loki should be home_.

Maybe it’s still afternoon and he’s just worked up an unusually good appetite. Thor climbs back up to the cave’s mouth, stretching and groaning as the muscles in his back and hips complain. Conditions outside are nearly as calm as they’d been earlier, with just the barest hint of a breeze, but the air is so cold it burns Thor’s lungs and there’s not a trace of sun’s warmth anywhere.

He’s been outside to relieve himself in the middle of the night far too often not to recognize these conditions. It’s long past nightfall, and yet he’s still alone here.

Thor’s heart leaps into his throat. Loki wouldn’t just leave him to starve alone, not after all they’ve been through. Loki- wouldn’t. No. Not on purpose. Something must have happened. Thor shakes his arms out. His fingertips prickle; his hands tremble. Loki has lectured him countless times: the terrain is dangerous, and even the most experienced Jotun hunters are lost to the ice if they let their guard down… even for one wrong moment.

Loki had left the cave angry. Flustered, distracted. Not in the right state to be traipsing about a landscape rife with soft drifts and deep fissures. His mind had been far away. He’d stepped into a crevasse and fallen to his death. Thor can _hear_ the screams, _see_ the slim arms reaching desperately but finding nothing.

Meanwhile Thor is trapped here, doomed to die.

“Stop it,” he tells himself aloud in an effort to drown out his heart’s ridiculous thundering. Loki had stomped around (and around and around and around) this morning, for far longer than getting ready to go out for the day required. “He left on a short excursion,” Thor explains to himself. “There isn’t anywhere to be alone here, and you’re not the only one who needed to clear his head. Once he’s had a little time on his own, he’ll show up. Don’t be stupid. You know he’ll come back. This is his home. He knows his way around, safely, and he wouldn’t just leave you here to die. Seriously,” he chastises himself, “you’re being stupid.”

As explanations go, it’s a perfectly reasonable one. it makes sense. It does. Loki has invested far too much time, food, and effort on keeping Thor alive to just outright abandon him on the heels of a minor argument. Still, Thor _doesn’t_ know anything, of course, except that he is here alone. Helpless. His stomach rolls at the thought of food.

He tosses and turns and then lies tangled in his fresh, clean furs for ages, heart racing and mind spinning out of control, before sleep finally overtakes him.

~

When Thor wakes, he’s still frustratingly anxious, but his growling stomach is too insistent to ignore. He shakes out his bedding and then makes his way carefully – it wouldn’t pay to fall and hurt himself now that he’s here all alone - to the far end of the cave where Loki stores their emergency food supply. They keep enough on hand – dried fish, slabs of bitter desiccated vegetation that boil into what’s arguably the worst soup Thor’s ever tasted, tiny rubbery squares of fruit so sweet it makes his mouth water – to feed two people for a fortnight, which Loki once assured him is the longest they’d ever have to endure the aftermath of a blizzard.

He counts the food out carefully with both hands before setting aside today’s very small portion. If he rations his supplies faithfully, Thor figures, he can go a month without Loki(‘s seidr) here to replenish them.

A month. He has a month to figure out how to contact Heimdall. Thirty days to call help down from Asgard. Thor kicks himself, mentally. He’s been here – he’s _wasted_ \- all this time and yet he hasn’t even been trying. He’s let himself be lulled into a false sense of security. Of _belonging_ here in Jotunheim. With Loki. 

Thor paces all day, until his feet and his brain hurt in equal measure. After the last of today’s rations he flops into his bed-nest, too tired to toss and turn this time.

~

The next day, Thor spends - yes, wastes, stupidly… but he can’t not; he just cannot get it out of his head - missing Loki.

~

The time for self-indulgence is over. Thor wakes up determined to make good use of his remaining window. He has enough food left for about 27 days. He needs to plan, _now_. It won’t be of any use to daydream. To procrastinate. To worry about how he drove his friend away, when his _friend_ was only ever his _captor_ anyway.

Hours later and with nothing to show for it, he has to admit that angry, bitter plotting is really not all that effective… even when compared to heartsick moping.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

“Loki!” Thor leaps up the moment Loki squats to set his things down, nearly knocking him to the floor in the process. Loki only just warms his own skin in time before Thor is reaching out with both hands to pull him back up to standing. “I’m sorry,” Thor tells him over and over. “It’s just-. You- you left. I missed you.”

All Loki’s feelings crash atop one another in a messy heap. “And I came back,” he says sharply. “With food. Look,” he adds, gentler, as Thor’s face scrunches. If he didn’t know better, Loki might think Thor was fighting not to cry. Loki adds a fresh coat of _guilty_ to his giant stack of feelings. “I probably shouldn’t have just stomped out without explaining.”

“You were angry,” Thor says.

Yes, and I was selfish, Loki doesn’t answer. He’s (differently) angry even now. “I’m here,” he says instead, because obvious is easier. “And hungry. Let’s make ourselves some dinner.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds ways to fill the time.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

“Two more,” Thor says, testing the weight of the sack with his free hand. “Maybe three, if they’re small.”

Loki smiles. “And here I’d always thought you stronger,” he teases, laughing as Thor pulls a face. It’s a stupid attempt at humor and they doubtless both know it; even with the limited training regimen cave dwelling affords, Thor is ridiculously powerful. Not that Loki himself is by any means weak - at least not as Jotun runts go - but face-to-face with Thor he’s (more) grateful (than ever) for his seidr.

Thor snorts. He pokes at the bag, already lumpy with game, with the rounded handle of his walking stick. “You know full well it’s your sack that’s the weak link here.”

“Of _course_ it is,” Loki purrs. He’s not in the right company for sack jokes, not without his brothers here to laugh with (at) him. “Keep telling me that and someday I might listen.” He turns away, knives in one hand and nothing but air in the other, and smiles happily to himself as his legs cut a path through the endless snow. While he might not ever deign to admit it, hunting without the nuisance of lugging his own bounty truly is much more pleasant than hunting alone. Company aside. Really.

“This was a good idea,” Thor says as they walk single-file through the snow. He strides confidently now; Loki can walk at a brisk pace, and the plink-plink of Thor’s walking stick against the ice no longer taps out a three-legged rhythm.

“You know, it may have been,” Loki admits, confident the wind will carry his voice – and his confession – away from them. “Mm?” he hums when Thor asks “what?”

“What did you say?” Thor asks again. “I couldn’t hear you.”

Loki grins. It’s difficult not to laugh aloud, even knowing that doing so would blow his flimsy cover. “Just that we need to quiet down, or we’ll scare away our dinner.”

~

Hunting together hadn’t really seemed like a great idea at the time. In fact, it’d borne all the hallmarks of an awful one: Thor, blind, cold-sensitive, and grown unused to hiking after months of confinement, would be slow and useless at best. At worst, a dangerous liability. After abandoning his cave-mate – albeit briefly – in a fit of temper, though, Loki had struggled (and failed) to shake off the strong (pitiful, misguided) desire to make amends for his behavior somehow.

“In a few days,” Loki’d suggested that first night home over dinner, at once excited by and annoyed with his own notion, “we should go hunting. You should come out with me, I mean. You can follow my footsteps. I won’t let you fall. And while you may not be able to catch much of anything, you can certainly carry things and otherwise make yourself useful.”

Loki’d squinted in the torchlight, watching as emotion after emotion had raced across Thor’s face. ‘You don’t think I would be a burden?” Thor’d cocked his head, frowning sightlessly down at his steaming fish.

If only. “Oh, I’m sure you will,” Loki’d retorted, laughing to cover his own worried discomfort. He’d had to fight the urge to clear his throat and, by so doing, give too much of himself away. “But you’re crafty. And strong. I’m confident you’ll eventually find some way around it.” He’d clapped his hands together a little too loudly; they’d both flinched. “Now that _that’s_ settled,” he’d said brightly, “let’s finish up so you can clean our dishes.”

~

“I’m going to need something to wear,” Thor’d pointed out a few days later as Loki’d begun readying himself to head out. He’d almost managed to forget his earlier- suggestion. More like _promise_ , probably. “Even in the summer, down on the plain, this realm is far too cold for me to walk about so lightly dressed.” Thor’d gestured to the soft hide shoes and knee-length, furred loincloth with both bare arms. The tiny war hammer nestled between Thor’s collarbones had shifted and caught the light. “Unless, of course, your plan is to once again freeze me.”

“If that had been my intent,” Loki had pointed out, annoyed, “I would have done it months ago and saved myself considerable trouble.” He’d frowned (uselessly) at Thor’s (unseeing) face. “Fine. What is it you wish to wear?”

Thor’s forehead had creased, his nose wrinkled. “Skins,” he’d suggested, about the time Loki’d become so preoccupied with said nose as to have forgotten the point of the question. “With a cape. And gloves. And breeches.”

Loki’d laughed despite himself. Like anyone in Jotunheim wore _breeches_.

“Surely you don’t go forth into the snow naked,” Thor’d teased, laughing in turn. “You act as thought you’ve never worn clothing before.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Loki’d huffed, profoundly annoyed at his own slip. “Of course I have. It’s _cold_ here.” And it hadn’t entirely been a lie: after all, he wears a loincloth himself in most any weather… with a fur-edged cloak and boots if it’s truly frigid. Still, in (order to have any hope of) maintaining the illusion of being anything other than native Jotun, Loki’d known he’d needed – would continue to need, for that matter - to do better. He’d quickly conjured them both skin tunics and _breeches_ , his own quite a bit lighter-weight, and had tossed one set to Thor.

And then he’d grumbled to himself as he’d struggled with his clothing.

Asgardian-style dress, Loki’d quickly noted, was uncomfortable. Even just in breeches he’d immediately been too warm, not to mention constricted in ways (and places) he couldn’t ever remember being. The tunic had fit better but had nevertheless managed to be even less comfortable. Loki’d hooked a finger inside its neckline and had run it back and forth, shifting and twisting in a futile effort to let in enough air to cool his skin.

“Why are you fidgeting?” Thor’d asked him, almost immediately. Loki’d cursed quietly under his breath and made a concerted effort to stand still. “If you’ve reconsidered,” Thor’d said, eyes downcast and face blank, “I can stay behind while you go.”

Oh. _Oh_. “Of course not,” Loki’d half-lied, “I could use the company. Take this,” he’d added, handing Thor a rugged walking stick and an empty sack. “And don’t wander off my trail. I won’t thaw you twice, you know,” he’d added, firmly, meaning every word of it.

Well, okay, maybe just _almost_.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Outdoor fun, and not-so-fun.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

What they actually do for the first few hours is explore, not hunt. Thor has never been to this particular part of Jotunheim, as best as either of them can tell, and - as Loki quickly discovers - there’s a surprising amount of pleasure to be had in describing the surroundings to an attentive listener. Thor’s initially-tentative, cautious steps quickly give way to the sort of confident stride Loki always pictures when he thinks of Asgardian royalty; he and Thor are practically of a height, but Loki all too soon finds himself almost struggling to keep pace with his hiking partner.

“It’s nice to be outside,” Thor says, shrugging, when Loki has to tug him to a halt (those heavy furs are good for something) to (catch a breath, maybe, but also) ask how he’s feeling. “At the risk of sounding rather less than grateful – which I don’t mean to be, I assure you – I- well, I’m a bit tired of being cooped up in- in the cave day in and day out.” He sighs. “I was a warrior. An athlete. A rather reluctant scholar, my tutors would tell you. I’ve never been much of one for sitting. You would hate it too, probably.”

Loki laughs, but he has to admit (to himself, of course) that Thor probably does have a point. While Loki personally considers himself more scholar than warrior, he knows he would be greatly inconvenienced by the loss of his sight (not to mention intensely annoyed by months of forced inactivity… of _cap_ tivity).

The next time he insists that they stop to rest – he can’t do it while they’re moving, lest they lose their footing and tumble to their deaths – Loki shuts his eyes and pretends he can’t see either. It’s awful; claustrophobic and terrifying. “Is everything okay,” Thor asks when Loki (stupidly) shivers, bumping their fur-clad shoulders together.

“Of course,” Loki assures Thor with a probably-not-as-impressive-as-he’d-like show of false surety. He opens his eyes, ridiculously relieved that he can still see the world around them, and blinks at the now-too-bright sunless landscape. It’s a cloudy enough day that they – he – may just see a few fresh flakes later. “I- I’ve gotten a bit chilled standing around.” It’s the worst sort of lie – in reality, he’s roasting after marching around in all this clothing – but he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing anything this personal. Not with anyone. _Certainly_ not with Thor. “Do you mind if we keep walking?”

Thor reaches towards Loki’s voice and gives his arm a little squeeze. “Of course not.” Thor grins, sightless eyes pale blue and pupils too wide under the overcast sky. “You were the one who stopped us.”

“I don’t want you to tire yourself out.” Loki makes a mental note to be more careful, and a second one to find (or conjure) something to protect Thor’s eyes from future (further?) damage. While snow blindness is probably not an issue in this weather, a sunny day would pose a real problem… and do real injury. Injury they would doubtless both regret someday. Assuming, that is, that Thor will _someday_ recover. Because of course he will. Not like Loki cares anyway, but Thor will. He has to. “You’re quite a heavy load to carry.”

“Loki,” Thor chastises, his hand still managing to feel warm on Loki’s forearm through all those awful layers. “I can’t see, sure, but that doesn’t make me an invalid.”

“Mm,” Loki hums. “I suppose not. Come on, then.”

~

They end up hiking most of the day. Loki leads Thor to one of his favorite winter places; an uninterestingly narrow (but fish-filled) cataract by summer, the little waterfall morphs into a fantastical frozen sculpture as winter sets in. This year is no exception. The ice twists and spirals up into the sky, a beautiful frozen geyser flanked by blue-white whorls and pillars. Loki tells Thor stories of powerful golden fish – “honey-colored,” Thor supplies when Loki runs out of ways to describe them more precisely – and skies full of circling birds.

“Here,” Thor says, sounding suspiciously- awed, maybe. Suspiciously _suspicious_. “Birds. Here? You’re serious? Flocks of _birds_ in _Jotunheim_?”

Loki elbows Thor in the ribs. It’s almost (too much!) like they’re becoming friends, strolling about chatting this way. “Yes,” Loki insists, striving for a decidedly not-friendly tone of voice. “In your time here, you really should have paid more attention.”

“Clearly,” Thor huffs, “but- I hardly could have known this place would rob me of my sight, now, could I?” Loki sneaks a look at Thor, who’s – in the space of two breaths; he’s as bad as Loki - gone from jovial to angry. “I hate this. I hate it. I should never have listened to my father. I should never have _come_ here.”

It shouldn’t hurt - Loki knows he would be beyond frustrated himself, were their positions reversed - and yet it does. “If I’m such poor company,” he grouses, “you are free to leave at any time.”

Thor snorts, derisive. “You know I’m not,” he says, looking - sad. Crushed. Defeated. Aptly rewarded for turning on Loki without warning. “Where would I even go?”

“Anywhere. Go. Shoo.” Loki pulls free of Thor’s grip and bounds eight, maybe ten long strides away. He expects Thor to try to chase him, or perhaps to howl in anger… to spout threats of all the awful fates that lie in store should he not once again offer immediate assistance. Basically, to give Loki the chance to swoop in and do a little saving.

Instead, Thor crouches in the snow and feels around for their tracks. He half-straightens and twists towards Loki… but then turns away once more, drops to hands and knees, and starts _crawling_ back the way they’d come.

“Thor,” Loki calls when it’s clear the Aes isn’t playing around. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll freeze. Again. Norns, what _are_ you doing?”

“I’m heading back to the cave,” Thor says, loudly. He’s already made it far enough away that Loki has to strain a bit to hear him. “Go on. I won’t trouble you further.”

It’s ridiculous… they’ve been walking for hours and, while Thor is adequately dressed for traipsing about, he simply can’t crawl all night and hope to survive until morning. “Stop being a child and get up,” Loki yells after him as Thor crests the nearest gentle ridge and disappears from view on the far side. With a loud sigh and an equally annoyed look to the skies, Loki reverses course and jogs after him.

~

“How long are you planning on crawling?” Loki, too stubborn to beg Thor to stand, has been following Thor (also clearly too stubborn to admit defeat and get back to his feet, despite snow-caked gloves and knees that must be starting to bleed a little from the looks of the pink-stained trail he’s leaving) for far too long now, cycling between guilt, frustration, and flat-out annoyance.

“Until I get there, or you leave me in peace,” Thor grumbles.

“Or you die,” Loki spits.

“Oh, I won’t,” Thor says, sounding as annoyed as Loki is. “I can’t get that lucky; you’ve already proven you’ll never let me.”

It’s insane. They’re both insane. “Please stop,” Loki- not pleads, no, _orders_. “Please. This is stupid.”

Thor pauses and then rocks back to sit on his heels, stiff-gloved hands resting on his heavy thighs. “I’m a man, you know,” he says softly. “A warrior. You need not treat me like a spoiled child.”

“Well, yes, and I could have been the next king of this dump,” Loki mutters under his breath. “I suppose that makes us better than even,” he adds in a more normal tone of voice. “Get up. Please?”

“What did you say?” In every possible way Thor looks tense and exhausted, on top of which he’s beginning to really shiver. Still, his senses are too sharp by half. These are chances Loki should not be taking

“Nothing,” Loki tells Thor, beyond irritated with both of them, and reaches out with his seidr to pull them back home.

~

Rather than thanking Loki, or even reacting like a normal person and just getting angry, Thor- loses it. Completely. It isn’t until several long, ugly minutes into the ensuing struggle, after Loki’s been given what will doubtless be an impressive black eye, that he realizes it: Thor has no memory of the last time they did this. “Thor,” he tries, for the umpteenth time, only just dodging a too-well-aimed kick. While Thor may be sightless, that in no way equates to weak or slow. “We’re home. It’s just me, Loki. Relax. Please! Or at least stop breaking everything.”

It’s true enough. Thor has stopped actively attacking but still staggers backwards away from Loki whenever he tries to come closer. There are broken bowls everywhere. It’s adding up to a little too much destruction. “I brought us back to the cave,” Loki shouts, struggling to raise his voice above Thor’s howls. “Stop and _listen_ to me! Please! It was just my seidr. You’re fine. We both are,” he lies. His face is throbbing.

For an uncomfortably long time Thor just stands there panting, sweaty bits of hair clinging to his face. “What did you do to me?” He wipes his brow on the back of one glove… a glove that, in the warmth of the cave, is probably wetter than he is. “Before, I mean. When we were outside. What did you do?”

“You know I’m a sorcerer,” Loki reminds him. “You were cold. And tired. We were both being idiots.” That part is harder to admit, but it’s probably important. “It was time to come back indoors.”

“We weren’t just _outdoors_ ,” Thor says. “We were _hours_ away.”

“Hours, inches. It’s all the same.” It is. The fabric of space-time folds in precisely the same manner, no matter how far apart the endpoints. “I wasn’t sure we had it in us to make it back here safely. So I did what I had to do. I’m sorry.” Loki might even _be_ sorry, at least a little. It hadn’t been his intent to frighten Thor so thoroughly. “Your people have the Bifrost. Surely you’re no stranger to this sort of thing.”

Thor shakes his head, slowly. He’s still perspiring, and breathing heavily. “No. But this was- it was different.”

Loki considers his options. “Fine. Next time I’ll ask you first,” he probably lies. “Or tell you, anyway,” he corrects, which is a lot closer to the truth. There isn’t always going to be time to ask, and then to argue. Sometimes he’s going to have to err on the side of caution, or at least expedience, in ways Thor clearly doesn’t find comfortable.

“No,” Thor counters. “Next time you just don’t do it.”

“Suit yourself,” Loki chirps, false-brightly. “ _You_ go back out there and _die_ , then. _I’m_ going to make myself dinner.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exercise helps with talking, kind of.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

Friendship may be impossibly dangerous, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t workable alternatives.

Loki, with Thor in tow, visits nearly every landmark in the north over the course of the season. Early on it's arguably driven by the joy of showing off his knowledge, especially to such an engaged and willing pupil. Before long it's become a joint effort, though. As they crisscross the snow-strewn landscape Loki tells Thor what stands, lies, or falls away in front of them; when they stop to rest (or there’s nothing to see) Thor in turn regales Loki with equally fascinating stories of the Realm Eternal. Of gold and storms and beasts so bizarre-sounding that Loki can only assume they're not real but fantastical.

Weather permitting, they head out almost daily. Even when there’s no need to hunt walking about is much nicer than staying cooped up in the cave, and Loki finds it far easier to- to relax, to be himself and not on edge, with a few strides’ worth of frozen ground between them.

~

"Have you been to the south of Asgard?" Thor asks. The snowfield they’re crossing is large, flat, and boring, meaning it’s Thor’s turn at storytelling. They’ve reached a (mental) impasse: Loki has been – is – having a difficult time picturing the vista Thor has been struggling equally hard to describe despite how Thor, fortunately or otherwise, seems near-endlessly willing to tell him the same tale over and over. "Because if you have not," Thor suggests when Loki can’t quickly come up with a safe answer, "you really should. Clearly I cannot do the place justice."

"You're more observant than I would have expected," Loki half-teases (in lieu of that still-elusive answer) as they walk along. It's (a nice deflection, and) both a dig and a compliment. Probably more the latter. He kind of hopes it’s taken as the former.

"I _was_ ,” Thor corrects. “I haven't been without my sight forever." He sighs. “I don’t think my ears and nose are making up for the loss very well… and it’s not like I can rely on my fingers. Not in this cold realm, anyway.”

Loki trails a finger of his own through the snow. The cold is pleasing. "Does it hurt? " He’s genuinely curious by nature and has wondered about the pain since first discovering Thor’s blindness.

Thor normally acts as though sightlessness is little more than a nuisance, something requiring an annoyingly large amount of assistance to work around, but that behavior tells Loki little. Thor is tough and stoic, like Loki(’s brothers) a warrior through and through. And he has ample reason not to trust Loki fully. All of the above might discourage Thor from complaining of weakness, or suffering, out of self-preservation… at least as long as he can avoid it.

"What?" Thor's voice is sharper than it had been during his endlessly confusing Asgard story. "Does what hurt? Touching the ice? Of course it does," he huffs. “You’ve warned of that yourself so many times it’s made my ears bleed.”

"Your eyes," Loki corrects, politely. Some days he, too, itches for a fight just to have something to do. Today he doesn’t. "Does it hurt not to see?"

Thor skids to a noisy, abrupt halt and – as Loki spins to see what’s wrong – fists a powerful hand over his own chest, right where his beating heart hides. "Only here inside," he says softly, the fight gone out of him as quickly as it came. "I miss the things naught but my eyes can tell me." Thor shakes his head sadly. "And it sounds odd, maybe, coming from someone who was once a soldier... but I miss my independence. I miss holding the reins of my own destiny."

"And who holds them now?" Loki squats to trace a pattern in the snow at their feet, the snow only he can see.

Thor shrugs and pushes past Loki, then starts off across the plain alone. His boots kick up little swirls of snow, crystalline and sparkling. "You do."

It's no small thing, Thor tossing him this much rope. Loki will be lucky not to strangle the both of them. “Let me by,” he insists instead, leaping up to race after Thor. “You’ll fall into a pit and get us killed.”

With Loki safely back in front, they march along in silence. He quickly misses the stories they’d shared earlier.

~

"No," Thor offers out of nowhere, some two miles father along. The sudden noise startles Loki; he jumps and struggles to hide a stumble before remembering he really doesn’t need to. "It doesn't hurt,” Thor clarifies. “Not the way you meant, anyway. It's just a void where my sight should be." He clears his throat. “Now that you mention it, though, it _did_ hurt when it happened. Not just my eyes, but my face and hands too.”

Loki scrunches his nose. This could be useful. “What kind of pain?” he asks. “What did it feel like?”

“I don’t really remember,” Thor admits. Loki frowns. He’d hoped for more- for _better_ information. “Burning,” Thor says softly. “It felt like my skin was burning.”

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing here but the snow burns people. Not Jotuns, anyway.

~

"And what do _you_ look like?" Thor sits next to Loki at the top of a frozen waterfall, no doubt feeling the ice creak and groan beneath them. "Describe yourself to me," he prompts as Loki struggles yet again to find a safe answer. "Surely you can tell me what I might see, were my vision returned to me."

Oh, no, Loki surely _can't_. He thinks back to the tales Thor has spun for him, of slim serving girls with long dark hair and of powerful warrior maidens. "You and I are of a height," he says, because that much is true. He wants to build a solid framework of reality under his veneer of lies. "But I am less bulky. And pale, not pink and gold like you are." All of this is true as well. Loki shares little of Thor’s heft and, while Thor is as perpetually golden as all of Asgard, Loki himself is- well, blue. Blue as a glacier and divulging none of it. "I have black hair, long enough that it hangs to my rump unbound," he adds. More truth; Thor knows its length, having washed and combed it. Loki smiles. "And,” he lies at last, “I'm told my eyes are green."

"Told?" Thor laughs. "Are you weaving yet another story?"

"No!" Loki carefully pictures his imaginary self. Green _ish_ , then. "Of course not. It's just that to me they look closer to _blue_."

“And here I expected you’d say you’d never seen your own reflection,” Thor says, still grinning. “Are there even mirrors in Jotunheim?” Now Loki suspects he’s being made fun of. “It’s so cold. Wouldn’t they just ice up anyway?”

Loki rolls his eyes, despite how Thor can’t see him do it. “Do we keep it unbearably cold in our cave, Thor? Don’t be silly. Of course there are mirrors.” In Utgard proper, there really aren’t – even out of the weather the city really is determinedly cold and the Jotnar are not a particularly vain people (unless they are Loki) – but he’s certain Thor has neither been a guest in the royal quarters nor a supplicant in the temple. Back in their own little cave haven it’s amply warm enough for studying one’s own reflection; when they get home, Loki thinks he might just conjure a mirror and prove it. Except that of course Thor can’t see, so he’d be “proving” pretty much nothing beyond his ability to make nice, smooth glass.

“Did they have them in your native land as well?” Thor isn’t laughing now, and Loki almost blurts out something that would expose his deception.

“Everyone has mirrors, don’t you think?” he says instead, carefully chipping away at a tiny chunk of ice with his thumbnail. “Every realm must have some beauty.”

“Oh, I can wholly dispute that.” Thor is suddenly bright and cheerful again, his demeanor changing as fast as the snow. “I have been places where everyone and everything was naught but hideous to look at. But you sound- fair. Fair enough, anyway.”

Loki _is_ fair, to his own eyes at least, and it’s not often enough he’s appreciated for it. He doesn’t pull away when Thor jostles him, the smallest bump of a shoulder.

~

They spend quite a while lost in their own thoughts again. It takes Loki much longer than it should to realize Thor is really shivering.

This time he _asks_ before summoning his seidr. While he really doesn’t think he should need permission, Loki has to admit there’s something to be said for zero screaming.

~

“I could get used to this, you know.” Thor sprawls in front of the purple fire as Loki, hands carefully brought to a safe temperature, rubs the warmth back into him. “It’s hardly incentive to behave more responsibly.”

Loki should be angry. He’s not sure (he wants to know) why he isn’t.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A light bulb comes on, kind of.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

Now that all the basics of hunting with Loki – being outdoors, keeping to his feet, staying on the trail, making sure to pick up his toes more than he might normally so as to not catch a boot tip and stumble, taking up the game bags and holding them open without actually touching Loki on the (frequent) days it’s painfully clear even the most accidental sort of touching is off limits – have become so deeply ingrained that he can perform them without conscious thought, Thor can afford to let his mind wander a little. He can monitor the breeze for the faintest hint of anything that might herald the end of winter (because he knows winter _does_ end, even here in this frozen place, and this time he’s determined to make the most of whatever “warmer weather” might amount to). He can listen to the crunch of the snow beneath their feet and, beyond that, the skittering of fleeing prey and the distant creak-crack of the ice shifting.

He can trail along after Loki thinking about his own mother’s gardens. The tapestry-lined walls of the palace where he grew up. What it once felt like to be overly full after dinner.

Or, when the mood _doesn’t_ strike him, Thor can stroll along thinking of nothing at all.

Which is basically what he’s doing when he hears it off in the distance: a sharp, shrieky howl that makes every muscle in his body spasm.

“What in the gods was _that_?” Thor hisses through clenched teeth. “What made that sound?” he adds when Loki hums, puzzled, at him. He rolls his neck and stretches his jaw in a marginally successful attempt to loosen them. Even so the noise he makes is a poor, poor imitation. “That. Sort of. What creature makes that kind of- call?” When he tries in vain to shake the whole thing off and takes another step, his legs are trembling.

Up ahead, Loki’s footfalls are still regular and confident. “I don’t know what you would call them in Asgard,” he says, not loudly enough for the widening gap between them, perhaps unaware that Thor’s barely managing to keep moving. “Do you have anything that’s- oh, I don’t know, a combination of a large wild cat and a lizard?”

Thor tries to laugh. His ribs won’t do it. His whole body shakes and twitches. He can barely hear Loki’s voice over the pounding of his own heartbeat in his ears. “Like a Midgardian salamander? The mythological kind?”

“No,” Loki says. “Not really.” Step, step, step. “Why? They live all the way to the north and don’t come all the way down here often.”

_Oh._ Just like that, Thor’s sure. Dead certain. Dead. Certain. “So they _do_ come down here _now and then_ , though?” he asks anyway, kind of dumbly given how he’s just _heard_ one. His teeth chatter. “Sometimes?”

Loki hums. “I might see one or two a year.”

“That’s what attacked me,” Thor forces out. “I _know_ that sound. It has to be.”

The rhythmic crunch-crunch of Loki’s feet against the snow stops. “You mean back when y- Thor, are you okay?” Loki asks, cutting himself off. Thor hears him hurrying closer. “What’s going on? Have you taken ill?” Loki’s hands clasp Thor’s upper arms. “Thor,” he says again, sounding truly concerned now. “You’re shaking.”

Thor jerks away. All the memories he’d thought forever lost come flying back in a terrifying rush: The sounds. The fall. The awful burning.

Waking up to a night so dark it seemed impossible.

_Never, ever reaching morning._

“I don’t-,” Thor tries. “I just- I-… sorry,” he huffs, grunting as his knees hit the snow. He’s queasy. His brain can’t seem to work his mouth. It’s all too much. It’s all too sudden.

“Shh,” Loki soothes, hovering close by again and touching Thor’s shoulder gently. “You’ll be okay. I’ll take us home.”

Thor wants to protest, wants to insist that he got out here on his own two feet and he’ll get back the same way. He’s not afraid of some stupid Jotun cat-lizard. When he finally opens his mouth, though, all that spills out is an embarrassing half-sob.

~

His nest of furs is warm, almost too warm after the cold outside. The individual hairs prickle his skin. They’ve been home quite a while – it took the two of them (mostly Loki) what felt like _forever_ to get Thor’s uncooperative body out of its clothes and into bed – and he’s still fucking shaking.

“Here,” Loki says, handing Thor a small, spherical bowl. It’s smooth against his fingertips. “Drink this. It will help. I promise.”

Thor does, without hesitation. The peaceful, sleepy feeling starts in his belly and spreads swiftly outwards. “I’m going to nap,” he _thinks_ he says, and then everything is softly silent.

~

“How are you doing?” Loki’s fingers brush Thor’s forehead. They seem cooler then normal. Maybe it’s just because he’s so cozy and warm. “Any better?”

Thor stretches experimentally. Everything hurts. He groans. “A little sore,” he admits, which is an understatement. He feels like he’s just gone four rounds in the ring against the best of his guards. At least it seems as though he’s done with the stupid shaking. “What time is it?”

“Dinnertime, I hope,” Loki says, sounding a little less concerned than he had initially. “I don’t know about you but I’m hungry.”

“Me too,” Thor responds carefully after a quick bodily inventory. His stomach feels empty, normally so. It’s not in its previous awful state of upheaval. “Seriously, though, what time is it? How long did I sleep?”

Loki’s fingers comb gently through Thor’s hair. “Six hours,” he admits. “Maybe seven. Your body reacts to things differently than mine. I’m never quite sure how much of anything to give you.”

Thor sits up with a groan and gropes around his bedding for a tunic. His jaw aches a little. “Drugging me regularly, are you?” he complains as he tugs the thing over his head. He’s reasonably sure he knows the answer (no), but today’s events have left him out of sorts and testy.

“What? _No_ ,” Loki says. “Not since you regained consciousness all those months ago. Not until today. You- you-…”

“…needed it, I know,” Thor admits. “I should probably thank you.”

“But you won’t,” Loki gripes.

They both laugh ruefully. _We’re ridiculous_ , Thor thinks. “Fine,” he says. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

Loki laughs again. “Don’t be,” he says at last. “It’s not like you actively chose to lose it on me.”

Right. “I’m a warrior,” Thor reminds (himself, at least as much as) Loki. The _prince_ part almost slips out. Fuck. Thor blames it on the lingering effects of whatever he’d been given. Regardless, he needs to be more careful. Needs to keep his wits about him. “I can’t just go panicking whenever I feel like it.”

“Shh,” Loki says. “This isn’t like being in battle. It’s like having lived through a particularly awful skirmish and then running into something out of nowhere that- that reminds your body of it somehow. It’s visceral, not rational.” He squeezes Thor’s shoulder through the worn leather.

“Hm,” Thor concedes. Loki’s touched him more today than- well, since he can remember. It’s a comfort. Maybe Loki really does feel sympathy – empathy? – and not derision. “My viscera need to get smarter, then.”

Loki snorts. “Absolutely.”

~

The rabbit stew is rich and filling. Thor eats slowly, trying to make the warm calm it brings last.

“So it spit at you?” Loki asks.

Thor jumps. He’d all but forgotten the two of them were- talking. “What? Oh, right. Yes. Or sprayed something. It got me in the face.” If he lets his mind go there, which he tries his hardest not to, he can _feel_ the phantom burning. “And then I grabbed at my face and got whatever it was on my hands.”

“And you couldn’t see?”

“I don’t know. I guess not.” It’s a strain to remember exactly what happened. “I might have blacked out. And I think it was dark by then anyway?” As much more as he can remember now, there are still key pieces missing. “But, yes, as I was walking back to my cave I could see and the next- morning, I guess, I couldn’t. So it pretty much has to be related.” He sighs. “Also, everything – my face, my hands – was numb.”

Loki pokes at Thor’s hand with a sharp utensil. “Oww,” Thor complains, even though it hardly hurts.

“But you’re not numb anymore,” Loki points out, needlessly. “And yet you still can’t see.”

Thor shrugs. “Eyes are complicated?” His are stinging. He turns away slightly, hoping Loki can’t see that he’s too close to crying.

“Hm,” Loki says. The utensil clatters back into his bowl. “I suppose. Maybe.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki sneaks home-home and doesn't really get caught.
> 
>  
> 
> _12/10/17 - updated to fix a minor continuity issue..._

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

“I need to go to the capital,” Loki tells Thor. Referring to Utgard in such an impersonal way feels wrong; while it’s been a long, long time since he last called the place _home_ Jotunheim’s rough, frozen city is still far more (and less) than mere _capital_ to him. If he slips and refers to the city or its palace in a way that’s too familiar, though, Thor will be inconveniently suspicious. “I want to consult the library there, now that we know what attacked you.” What he actually plans to consult is a _healer_ , but he doesn’t want Thor lecturing him about how he’s taking too many chances. Even if (especially because) Thor’s reasoning is bound to be wrong entirely.

If it’s not, Loki has a big, big problem.

Thor frowns. “It’s a long way to go.” Which is true, of course, but Loki has no intention of hiking. Thor should probably have figured that out by now. Would have, most likely, if the unspoken “…and I’ll starve here without you” wasn’t interfering with his critical thinking.

“I’ll-,” Loki waves his hands and then pulls a face. Thor is often so perceptive that it’s sometimes hard to remember there isn’t any _seeing_ happening. “I’ll use my seidr. I don’t expect to be away more than a day… two at the outside. Do you think you can take care of yourself that long?”

“Of course,” Thor says firmly, and then undermines the whole _capable and strong_ act by clearing his throat as his voice wobbles. “I’ll be fine. Do what you have to do.” He picks up their sticky, greasy dinner bowls and makes his careful way back towards the fire. “I’ll be fine,” he says again. Loki’s pretty sure they both know which one of them needs convincing.

~

“Have you been there before?” Thor asks over the splashing. He’s using more of Loki’s favorite soap than the job requires. Normally Loki would call him out on being wasteful but this probably isn’t the time for it. Not when it’s easy enough to conjure more. “To the capital, I mean.”

“Of course,” Loki snaps in the second it takes him to remember that his fictitious self isn’t a Jotunheim native. “It’s how I got here,” he adds, which probably makes no sense and certainly won’t hold up to close inspection. Deflect, deflect. “Why, haven’t you?”

For an instant Thor looks as shocked – as caught out, which they’ll need to talk about eventually – as Loki just felt. Almost as quickly, his expression settles back into resentfully neutral. “Not on this visit,” he says. “But I have in the past, yes. It’s an interesting place. Not, of course, that I’ve been to the library.”

“I’m shocked,” Loki says, laughing. “I don’t think I believe that.” He half expects Thor to ask to come with him.

He’s not sure if he’s pleased or disappointed when Thor doesn’t.

~

It’s not particularly hard to make his way around the city unnoticed. King Laufey is not a fearful man, and the palace is easily enough defended; the place never crawls with the rows upon rows of guards one might see elsewhere. Loki wraps himself in the rags and worn skins of an old beggar – the faint magical hum of a glamour might draw the very attention he needs to avoid – and disappears into the bustling city around him.

~

“Prince Loki,” the healer says when he casts back his hood. He remembers her, too; she is the sister-daughter of his foster dam. She doesn’t look as awed as Loki thinks she ought to, especially considering that _he_ has no idea how she’s since discovered his true identity. Who knows what else she’s learned. Who knows _who_ knows.

He presses a finger to his own lips. “Shh,” he admonishes. “I do not want word of this to get to my father. Or my brothers,” he adds, just to be safe. “I am only here for the day. There’s not time to pay them a visit.” He shrugs, schooling his features into what he hopes will pass for sheepishness. “If they find out I came and went without seeing them, they’ll be very disappointed.” Truth in lies, truth in lies.

The healer smiles. She is not much taller than Loki; a runt herself, but gifted with skills that matter. Then, too, not being part of the royal line doubtless worked in her favor. “Your secret is safe with me,” she assures him. “Now, what brings you to my house of healing?”

He drags a finger along the bright, sparkling vials – paired, venom and antivenin – stopping when he gets to the flask of milky gel. “Would this one have a heightened effect on someone not native to this realm?” he asks casually. “I live in the north these days. I’ve been hearing stories.”

“Aye.” She nods. “I should think it would. In fact, yes, I remember once treating a minor Elvin ambassador who’d gotten splashed with it.”

There isn’t the usual antidote beside it; from their labels the bottles on either side are unrelated toxins. “Interesting,” Loki says, trying to sound like it’s anything but. He stifles a faux yawn. “And what did you do for him?” It’s a safe bet the ambassador was a man; none but the Vanir, with their strong goddess culture, send women to Utgard on behalf of their realms.

The healer shrugs. “I waited.”

“And?” Loki prompts. His nails click along the neat row of bottles, flasks, and jars. He stops to examine a brilliant red one.

“Don’t touch that!” she warns, tugging him away. He’s not sure he’s ever been yanked at here before, not by someone who wasn’t family. Perhaps it should offend him. Instead, it reminds him sharply – almost painfully – of Thor. “Knock it over and we’re both dead before it hits the floor. It took a year,” she adds, voice closer to normal, “but the Elf made a full recovery. I’d expect to the same in most people. Perhaps not those from Midgard?” She shrugs. “They tend to be more- fragile.”

Loki smiles to cover his swirling emotions. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever find a Midgardian up in the northern wilds.”

She laughs. “Sure you will. You know full well anyone visiting from Midgard would freeze long before getting there.” She looks at Loki, eyes bright and expression curious. “Now, what _actually_ brings you here?”

He shifts his cloak. He sports a few long, healing scrapes down one shin from a recent bout of clumsiness. “My own potions aren’t even touching these scars,” he says. It’s not a lie; he hasn’t bothered to put anything on them. “And nothing helps ease the way my shoulder aches when I’m sleeping. I’m hoping you can give me something more effective.”

“Those are over here,” she tells him, gently steering him away from the glittering rows of bottles towards a rack of small tubs – salves and ointments – that don’t look nearly as inviting.

Loki supposes there must be a character flaw in there somewhere.

~

“You went all that way for two tubs of goo?” Thor’s disgusted act is just that: an act. Loki’s seen this before. It’s how Thor hides relief. Thor’s glad Loki’s back. Loki grins. He’s glad to be there.

“Aww,” Loki teases. “Listen to you. You missed me.”

“Only when the fire burned down,” Thor shoots back. “It did get a bit chilly.”

They share a laugh. Thor turns away, but not fast enough; Loki notices that he’s blushing.

~

“So there’s nothing that can be done for it?” Thor asks, flatly.

“I didn’t say that,” Loki says (even though, sure, he just pretty much did). “I asked a healer. She told me the effects recede over time. _Lots_ of time,” he goes on when Thor – successfully distracted from healer-versus-library but not without cost – points out that there’s already been plenty of time and not nearly enough receding. “The example she gave me… it took a full year.” He opens one of the little pots and waves it between them, laughing again as Thor’s nose wrinkles. “This one is for deep aches,” he says. It’s the potion she gave him for his imaginary shoulder pain. “Maybe it will help speed the process?”

“But I don’t _have_ any deep aches,” Thor complains.

“Suit yourself, then,” Loki says, twisting the cap back on. He’s excited, but not feeling at all like examining why. “I guess you’ll have to make do with waiting.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bickering and truths, bickering and truths.
> 
> _Next weekend, Ragnarok opens here. Depending on whether or not one weekend viewing is enough, I may or may not have tme to update. Thanks in advance for your patience._ :)

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

“Fine,” Thor huffs. They’ve been not-so-subtly arguing about the healer’s salve for the past three days. Four, maybe. Now that it’s painfully clear he’s here for the long run, Thor finds keeping a precise count less and less motivating. That, and the longer he’s here, the more likely it is that his family will investigate. Thinking about being “rescued” makes his stomach twist unpleasantly. He’s happier ignoring it.

There is, of course, a certain irony: early on, the idea of his father materializing out of thin air had been at once impossibly farfetched and comforting. Now the thought of it worries him, and wondering why that is only worries him further. “Fine,” he says again. “Put it on me. I guarantee it won’t do a thing… except give me a rash, probably,” he mutters under his breath.

“Hm,” Loki hums. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Through his frustration Thor allows himself a little smile. It’s so rare that Loki admits to overlooking _anything_. “Here, give me your arm. We’ll try it there first.”

Thor gestures for the small pot. “No. Give it here.”

Loki snorts. “Still don’t trust me? I have to live here with you. I’m not going to smear you with something that will hurt you on purpose.”

“Just stop.” Thor sighs. “It has nothing to do with trusting you.” He does, but he doesn’t. “I simply wanted to smell it.”

“Oh.” Loki laughs again, softer this time. His fingers are cool where they brush against Thor’s palm. The little jar is colder still, and surprisingly heavy. “Here,” he says, closing Thor’s fingers around the jar. “Go ahead. Sorry.”

“Not sorry enough,” Thor warns. He grabs for Loki’s wrist with his free hand. The skin there is cold, just short of painfully so. “What the _fuck_ , Loki? Oh no you don’t,” he growls as Loki tries to jerk free. Lies, then. All of it lies. “ _Trust_ you, eh? That’s _funny_.”

“Let go of me,” Loki insists, kicking at Thor’s shins. He’s strong – his feet do damage – but Thor is stronger.

“Not until you tell me what you really are.” Thor tightens his grip despite the cold.

Loki whines as the small bones in his wrist grind together. “I could freeze you, you know.”

Ah hah. Mystery after mystery clicks into place. All this time and they _finally_ get somewhere. Somewhere awful. “But you won’t,” Thor goads, “because you’re a coward.”

The wrist in his hand _burns_. He lets go, involuntarily, with a pained yelp. There’s too much noise as Loki stumbles backwards.

“Well then,” Loki fires at him, from much farther away, “apparently we both are.”

~

Thor huddles in his nest of furs. His shins hurt. His hand is throbbing. The cave air is unpleasantly cold against his face; the fire must be nearly out. He would investigate, but Loki is doubtless still in here somewhere. There hasn’t been any dramatic storming out, after all; that would have awakened him. Thor pulls a fur over his head with his good hand. Resting is hard. Sleeping seems hopeless. He sighs in- anger. Annoyance. He was born to be king, not some _frost giant’s_ puppet.

Not even a small one.

~

“Let me see your hand.”

Thor blinks, because the body’s habits die hard. He claws his way up out of groggy, nightmare-laced dozing. “Get away from me,” he growls at Loki, retreating as far into his furs as the pain in his hand will allow. “Don’t you dare touch me,” he orders, or tries to; said aloud the words don’t sound nearly as commanding as he’d hoped. “I mean it.”

“Oh, stop. Don’t be stupid,” Loki says. “Your hand needs care. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Right. “My hand is like this _because_ you hurt me,” Thor reminds, testily. Sleeping, if that’s what it was, has not made the pain in his palm and fingers better (although the ache in his shins is mostly gone). “Why should I believe a thing you say? You, the sworn enemy of my people.”

Loki sighs. “I don’t see anyone else around. Just now I _am_ your people.” He sighs again. “I hurt you because I was afraid,” he says, softly. “I’m sorry. I am. Now let me fix it.”

Thor tugs his furs more tightly around him. “Tell me what you really are, and I’ll consider your offer.” Or what? he reminds himself. It’s not like he isn’t stuck here. He can’t afford to go through life both sightless and one-handed. There aren’t many (any) options.

“You’re right,” Loki says flatly. “I’m Jotun. By birth, I mean, not just by lack of luck or opportunity. I’m- I’m unusually small, too. Which isn’t a good thing here.”

That, Thor understands. In Asgard, as well, the bigger and stronger the better. And where resources are short any drain is not welcome. He shakes the last fog out of his head. “We’re on Jotunheim,” he points out. “I do know that.” This isn’t a realm popular with tourists, diplomats, or scholars. “It’s only logical that someone I encountered so far from the capital would be native. It would hardly have come as a shock to me. So… why all the lying?”

“You can’t see. I helped you,” Loki says softly. “I was lonely.”

Thor frowns. He doesn’t get it, and says so.

“I- I don’t,” Loki fumbles. “Fine. I guess it gave me a chance to- to see what life could be like if I was different.”

“But how would that have changed anything?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I thought if you knew what I really was you wouldn’t like me.” Loki sighs. “Plus, you already thought I wasn’t a very good frost giant. _That’s_ something I’ve had an entire lifetime to grow tired of. Better to be something else, you know?”

Thor doesn’t know. It’s not a situation he’s ever had to consider, let alone deal with. Maybe he owes Loki an apology. Maybe not; there’s still his badly burned hand. He doesn’t offer one.

The fire pops. “Is that good enough for you?” There’s a little catch in Loki’s voice, like he’s fighting back tears. “Will you let me take care of your hand now?”

“Are you warmer?” Thor challenges, unable to stop being stubborn even once he knows it’s no longer gaining him anything. That’s one of his mother’s favorite complaints about him. He thinks of her, of having to crawl home in wounded defeat.

Of never getting there at all. He blinks away tears of his own.

“I’m not all that cold unless I want to be,” Loki says. “Unless I need to be. Whatever. Now give me your hand.”

It’s harder sitting up than he’d expected. Thor holds out his blistered palm, wrist held tight in his other hand to keep his fingers from shaking. “Warn me if it’s going to hurt, okay?”

“It won’t, not much,” Loki promises.

And it really doesn’t. Loki paints his whole hand, burned parts and normal skin alike, in a wet, wet gel that tingles. “Let that dry,” Loki tells him. “Then I’ll put some more on.”

“What is it?” Thor asks. It smells faintly herbal, reminiscent more of tea than medicine. Even this soon his hand feels a good bit better. The throbbing is all but gone, replaced with the deep, gnawing itch of new skin.

“Something really good for frostbite,” Loki dodges. “Comes in handy here.”

Of course it does. Thor wipes his eyes on his shoulder and forces a smile. “So,” he asks as he holds his hand out for another coat of gel. “You’re Jotun. _Are_ you blue?”

“No lies, huh?” Loki says.

“None,” Thor tells him, firmly. He doesn’t want things to be that way between them. Not anymore.

“Yeah, I am,” Loki admits. “A little. Maybe.”

“And the ancestry lines?” Thor thinks back to what Loki’d once told him about rituals and seidr. He fights back a shiver.

Loki clears his throat. “That part was pretty much true,” he says. “I’m mostly unmarked. I wasn’t- wanted.” He daubs Thor’s hand with gel. His fingers aren’t cold where they steady Thor’s wrist.

“ _Mostly_ unmarked” Thor echoes. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a long story,” Loki says. “Too long for someone who didn’t sleep much last night.” Thor catches the clink of a stone bowl, and water sloshing. “Drink this while your hand dries, and then you’re taking a nap. Healer’s orders.”

Thor sniffs the proffered cup suspiciously. It smells like Jotun snow, which is to say like nothing.

“Sleep because you’re _tired_ ,” Loki says. “It’s not a trick. I’m not drugging you. Here,” he adds, pushing Thor’s good hand away. “I’ll drink some and prove it.” He’s close by. His swallows are loud. Thor really is thirsty.

“Fine,” Thor says, done fighting. So done. “Give it to me.” He realizes as he downs the last of the water that- well, anything could happen. He feels okay, though. Calmer. Tired. Less confused, not as angry. He yawns. “And what if I won’t nap?”

“Then it’s going to be a long day,” Loki cautions, “because until that hand heals you are going exactly nowhere.”

“Fine,” Thor grumbles. He flops back into his furs. “And if I do sleep?”

Loki laughs. “Then we’ll test the healer’s salve on you later.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small, large thing.
> 
>  
> 
> _Here's a shortish one because Ragnarok is chewing into my weekend free time_

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

“You have been here quite some time now,” Loki says carefully, giving the soup a stir. The weather has turned warmer again, meaning a long hike down to the plain and back yielded not just game but root vegetables… the latter made especially tasty by their relative rarity. He’d tried conjuring them in the past, but the taste was always off and they’d sat strangely in his stomach. Perhaps that should have come as no surprise; the one and only time he’d chanced eating his own magical fish Loki’d vomited his guts out for days. The library had been no help, either. Handy as it might be it seems he has no aptitude for spelling himself foodstuffs. Oh, right. Thor. “Does no one back on Asgard miss you?” Loki asks. It’s hard to fathom how someone this golden and personable could disappear without many making note of it.

“Is anyone coming for me, you mean?” Thor smirks. At times like this it’s easy to forget he cannot see. “I’m on a scholarly mission, just like I told you. I was sent here to learn about Jotunheim. The realm is a complex place. I don’t think anyone expected me to return quickly.”

“So you do have people there?” Loki tries. They’ve gone ‘round this conversation before. After all this time together, all he’s revealed, he still can’t quite shake the feeling that every second word spilling from Thor’s lips is a lie.

“I- what?” Thor’s brows pull together in the smallest hint of a frown. It’s there and gone. All the same, Loki’s certain he didn’t imagine it. “Of course,” Thor says. “I didn’t spring up from the ground, now, did I? I have a mother and father. Colleagues. Friends. When I left, I bade them all farewell. They expect me back when I’ve learned what I can. Until then, sure, I expect they miss me.” Thor sighs. “I do miss them, after all.”

“No mate?” Loki prompts. “No children?”

This time Thor’s frown lingers. Deepens. “No, and no, though my parents do wish it of me. I- I’ve not yet found what I’m looking for, maybe?” Thor clears his throat “It’s hard to explain.”

That, Loki certainly understands. When it comes to explaining, his own family situation – not to mention his solitary life - is nothing short of complicated. If someone was coming for Thor, surely they’d have made it to his father’s court by now. There would have been A Situation. Loki would have been summarily dragged home to explain it. “And you’re not expected sooner by your place of employment?”

“My-?” Thor starts. His laugh sounds a bit frantic. “I- my- I’m a soldier. A warrior,” he says. “I’ve told you that before. I’m- I’m in the employ of the Allfather. I’m sure everyone there who needs to already knows what I’m up to.”

_One of Odin’s_ , Loki thinks. His pulse jumps. But then it makes sense. Here in Jotunheim, even, every soldier ultimately works for the king. “Just a cog in a big machine, then?” he half-teases anyway, watching Thor carefully for any hint of discomfort.

Thor wrinkles his nose. “Something like that. Let’s just say I’d not have been granted leave to come here at all if my absence posed too big a burden.”

Loki laughs, because what could possibly describe his own situation more perfectly? “Same, same,” he says, still laughing.

“So your family doesn’t care that you’re out here?” Thor tips his head. He looks genuinely surprised, which is almost flattering.

“My family,” Loki says too brightly, “doesn’t care that I _am_.” That’s actually not quite true – he’s a liability of sorts, worse than neutral… worse than nothing – but it’s all he’s planning on sharing regardless.

“Oh, I doubt that,” Thor says.

“Why, Thor, darling,” Loki mocks, “you’re far too kind to me.”

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

Thor rubs the salve carefully into the soft, delicate skin of his eyelids. He starts at the lashes and works in slowly widening circles until he’s greasy and sticky from brow to cheekbone, just like he’s done ever since (his hand, which should have withered and scarred horribly without a healer’s care, was as good as new in three days’ time and) he could no longer deny the considerable power of Jotun healing seidr. It’s more than habit; although he’s long since tired of both the sensation and the smell he’s become a hopeless slave to- to hope, probably. Maybe it will work. Maybe he will be made whole again.

Maybe nothing, but he just can’t accept that.

It’s on the fifty-third day – this is important; he’s counting carefully again – that something unexpected happens.

Thor has finished dressing, if you can call it that, in a fur loincloth and soft boots. He does this every day as well, unless they are leaving the cave, for despite how Loki pads about the place barefoot and teases him mercilessly Thor has not yet come to enjoy the way icy stone feels against his soles. He’s gathering a few things that really need a good washing when Loki says something too softly to catch. “What?” Thor asks, turning to face Loki because he’d only half heard-. “What the fuck?” He rubs his eyes, cursing again as the salve _squishes_. When he opens them again, it’s still _there_. A _difference_. By the Norns, there _is_ a difference. Closed. Open. Closed. Open. Thor whips around again, putting his back to Loki and the fire. Nothing. He turns towards Loki. Less dark. “Oh gods.” He sinks to his knees, his whole body shaking.

Soft, hurried footfalls and then Loki’s hand is cold against his shoulder. “Thor, what is it? Thor? Are you okay? Talk to me.”

Thor shakes his head in a hopelessly failed attempt to make sense of the impossible. “My eyes,” he squeezes out. “Light,” he tries instead. “Fire.”

“Shh.” Loki’s voice is very close by. His breath ruffles Thor’s hair. “Calm down. Whatever’s happened, we can fix it.”

“No-,” Thor tries. “Don’t want- _fuck_.” He fits his hands to his face again. “I don’t,” he makes himself enunciate, “want to fix it.” He takes a deep breath. “I can s- there is a difference between light and dark,” he tells Loki. “When I’m facing the fire, it’s- it’s not the same as when I’ve turned towards the wall.” His heartbeat is so loud in his ears, he’d be surprised if Loki can’t hear its thudding.

“You- what?” Loki squawks. “You can _see_?!”

“Ow!” Thor grunts as Loki’s fingers dig painfully into his shoulder. Which helps, actually. He feels more-… more grounded. “I can tell the difference between bright and dark,” he corrects. _See_ feels a bit overambitious. “It’s new. It, well, it shook me up a little.”

“A little,” Loki echoes, petting Thor’s hair like he’s a giant dog.

Thor shakes him off. “It would rattle you too, I assure you.”

“I’m sure,” Loki says, sounding a bit too much like he’s straining not to laugh. If he does, Thor will too, and they’ll waste the rest of the day screeching hysterically. “Let’s test it, shall we? Bright or dark?”

“Hm.” Thor blinks. Open. Shut. Open. Nothing. “Dark,” he tries, tentatively. It’s good to have something to focus on.

“Now?”

“Still dark.”

“And now?”

It’s still dark. “Dark,” he snaps, frustrated. Maybe what happened before really was just his imagination.

“And again.”

Thor opens his eyes into the sun. “Ahhh!” It’s bright, too bright, much more so than the fire. He shuts his eyes tightly on instinct, whipping away. Everything hurts. And then… spots and streaks. For the first time since the attack, light has left an afterimage.

“Sorry,” Loki tells him. “Was that too bright? I didn’t think about how it would be when it was so much closer.”

Norns. “Tell me you didn’t just shove fire in my face,” Thor grouses.

“I could,” Loki agrees, “but why would I? After all, aren’t you the one who’s always chastising me for lying?”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discoveries and near misses...

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

Thor had always expected- well, he’s not sure he’d _expected_ to reach this juncture at all, not after his sight had failed to make a prompt return in the days immediately after the incident. But in the long, dark weeks that followed, whenever he’d imagined regaining the use of his eyes he’d thought his first reaction would be joy. Boundless excitement. Ecstasy, even, because the loss of his sight had come as such a terrible shock and had troubled him so greatly. It had been difficult to conceive of something more pleasing.

That isn’t what he feels, though. Instead, he’s filled with vague fear, the sort of deep, nameless anxiety he hasn’t felt in forever.

As much as he’d once depended upon navigating his world by sight, since the incident Thor has become thoroughly accustomed to relying on his other senses. Yes, his daily life has narrowed considerably. Far from the boredom he might have expected, though, this particular shift has brought with it a surprising amount of- well, relief, actually. Now that he’s freed from preparing to rule – because what realm would fall in line behind a sightless leader; certainly not one steeped in conquest and warfare – for the first time since early childhood he’s allowed (forced, really, but in a useful, positive way) to focus on the relative minutiae: cooking, picking up after himself, moving about without harming his own body or the living quarters around him, caring for his mind and flesh, making peace with Loki.

All this paying close attention to the little details has, in turn, helped distract him from the failure that is his fruitless, endless-seeming mission-cum-exile here on Jotunheim… and from the awful mess he’s clearly gone and made of it. For not only has he thus far avoided accomplishing what(ever nebulous thing) he was sent here to do, it’s only looking less and less like he ever will. He would (should) think himself quite a disappointment to his people if he only had the time. He doesn’t, and for that he is grateful.

Strange as it sounds Thor is reasonably happy instead. He has learned to truly love the smallest things in his new life beyond their value as mere distractions: the texture of the cave floor, its stone beneath his feet so unlike the palace’s polished grandeur, and the feel of furs against his fingers. The simple tastes of well-cooked fish and pure, sweet water. The sound of his own voice, and – sometimes more so, which invariably still comes as a surprise – of Loki’s humming and laughter.

Thor knows he arrived here an angry, impatient warrior prince, with conquest (largely absent anything passing for strategy, he can oft admit now… to himself, anyway) always at the forefront of his thinking. Now, his day-to-day life has settled into something that’s both far less and much more.

Whatever happens, Thor doesn’t want to let any of his newfound pleasures go. If seeing again will rob him of the life he and Loki have gradually, grudgingly built here together, of something like friendship and of quiet satisfaction, then he will have none of it. He finds real comfort in thinking this way… even though he knows deep down the outcome (is beyond his control, and) cannot be so simple.

~

Change does continue to come, slowly. His vision returns far, far more gradually than it departed. It's weeks before he's certain his sight is even improving, once the first shock of perceiving light has worn off, and even once progress has become too obvious to ignore it's well more than a standard month before he can really begin to make out blurry shapes or riots of color.

That's the point at which he’s oh, so thankful for Loki’s recent admission; otherwise, Thor’s certain, he would be sure he was hallucinating.

Because while in terms of build Loki is much as expected – an indistinct, shifting collection of slender limbs crowned with a long fall of dark hair – Thor’s cavemate appears anything but pale and pinkish. Against any backdrop, be it the dark stone of the cave, the landscape above, or the snowy white of outdoor garments, Loki is clearly the bluest blue. Not the greyish tone of a fresh corpse, no; Loki's out-of-focus form is the rich, deep hue of Thor’s mother's most favored gowns. Smooth. Saturated. Intense. To Thor’s recovering eyes Loki’s skin looks almost satiny. Loki bears the approximate coloring of a Jotun warrior, perhaps, but certainly not the texture. 

The flames in the cave’s fire pit (which do crackle and snap like any other, and both cook and heat the place nicely) glow as purple as fully-ripened plums.

The many pelts - their sleeping furs, their outdoor clothing – which had been Asgard-dark in Thor’s sightless imagination all along, are actually shades of white and cream.

Everything here is strange. Only – and fortunately so - Thor and the fish look normal. His own skin is still ruddy and golden under the torches, and but slightly less so nearer the fire. What he can see of his hair is still golden as well. Whole fish gleam in the light. Their flesh is pink when raw and white when cooked, just like it is in Asgard. These are good things. Whenever he starts feeling too disoriented, he does have them to fall back on.

~

Thor's healing eyes don't cause him pain, not exactly. The small muscles around them are just out of practice; nothing works well together and everything fatigues quickly. He quickly learns that rubbing them inevitably sets him back a little, so he's careful just to close his eyes whenever it's all too much to manage.

"Are you okay?" They're draped around the fire after an evening meal of fish and something toughly salty Loki tells Thor is rehydrated dried seaweed. "You look like your eyes are bothering you."

Thor laughs to hide a wave of mild confusion – it’s been so long since he’s had working eyes to consider that hearing Loki speak of them puts him off-balance - and pops a big chunk of fish in his mouth. "They've felt dry recently," he confesses around his mouthful, which is true. "With the weather we've been having" - wind and more wind; blustery, swirling pinpricks of ice and snow - "I should probably be wearing my goggles again regardless of the sun." That's true as well; though the world is still blurry it’s also uncomfortably bright (even with his eyes closed) and his out-of-practice vision likely needs protecting now more than ever. “Was I carrying a pair when you found me?”

Loki hums. He often does when he’s thinking, Thor’s noticed, now that noticing is once again an option. “No, not that I saw,” Loki says. “Just a lot of grimy clothing and a necklace.”

“Necklace?” Thor’s hand flies to his chest unbidden. He’s touched his own skin hundreds – thousands – of times here. Of course his fingers land on- on nothing.

“A tiny war hammer,” Loki offers. “I’ve kept it safe. It has a magic I’ve never seen.” He laughs, softly. “I assumed it was meant to protect you… a token of your namesake, possibly?”

A bit of Thor’s fish goes down the wrong way; he sputters and coughs. “My namesake?” he chokes out. _His necklace_. “Whatever do you mean?” He sees a flash of white. Loki must be smiling.

“The Mighty Thor, son of Odin Allfather,” Loki explains, like it’s nothing more than a simple history lesson. Like Thor’s heart isn’t about to leap out of his chest and flop around on the cold floor like one of their fish, dying. “Your parents named you for him, no? A talisman, then. Surely the Aes have them?”

Loki babbles on but Thor cannot hear him over the surging tide of his own panic. If Loki has figured out who he is, his life is in grave danger. “No,” he splutters, cutting Loki off. “It’s just a trinket. I don’t know why it would be magical. And I have no idea why my parents named me as they did.” None of that is true, save perhaps the last… he’s actually never _asked_ anyone how or why his name was chosen. His face burns. Liar, liar. There’s no way he’s getting out of th-…

“Oh,” Loki says. The vague disappointment in his voice interrupts Thor’s train of thought mid-worry. Loki doesn’t suspect, not yet? It hardly seems possible. “Well, then,” he adds, more brightly, “I suppose you won’t mind if I keep it. Chew, will you?” he says, sounding cross, when Thor chokes on dinner once again. “I’m not in the mood for resuscitation.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frigga worries about her boy. Thor and Loki almost learn things.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

Loki dangles the tiny hammer by its cord.

The one time he’d touched the metal itself – accidentally; he’d bumped against it while removing Thor’s frozen clothing their very first day together – its strange _tugging_ tingle had warned him off a little, just enough to keep him from (succumbing to temptation and) prodding at it further. It hadn’t managed to really frighten him; he’d just left the thing hanging around Thor’s neck and gone on about his business.

When they’d begun leaving the cave on a regular basis, though, Loki’d ultimately decided that walking around with a (blind Aes wearing a) potential magical beacon wasn’t the wisest thing to be doing. Yes, he’d brought it along on one seidr-fueled jump before: when he’d had to, to save Thor’s life. But that had been unplanned; at that point Loki hadn’t known the thing existed. Once he did know, even though nothing visibly bad had come of having it around, he’d felt compelled to be- more _responsible_.

A day or two after he’d made up his mind, while Thor’d snored on in happy oblivion, Loki’d carefully worked the leather over Thor’s head and tucked the whole thing away for safekeeping. 

Loki hadn’t slept at all the remainder of that night. When Thor hadn’t noticed it missing immediately, though, the associated jitters had worn off. Loki had gradually all but forgotten the thing existed.

All but.

Not completely.

The hammer’s flattened ends catch the firelight as the strap twists to and fro. Tiny carved runes and symbols wind around its silver handle. Loki sneaks a quick look at Thor – lost to sleep, buried deep in a nest of furs save for one long, strong, pink-golden leg because (Thor says, and Loki wholeheartedly agrees) being too warm at night is almost worse than being cold – and touches the cool metal with just the very tip of one single finger. His whole hand wraps itself around the hammer, entirely of its own volition. Loki gasps as the cave around them blurs and fades away.

“You must be Loki.” The voice is rich, though not as deep as Thor’s, and the accent is unmistakably Aesir. There’s nothing around- around _them_ but darkness.

Loki frantically tries to let go of the hammer but cannot. It sticks fast to his hand as though part of him. “Who are you?” he demands, his own voice as cold as he can make it. “And how is it you are speaking to me?”

“Forgive my manners, Loki. What was I thinking? I am Thor’s mother. Tell me, how is my son?”

“How are you speaking to me?” Loki asks again. “And how do you know my name?”

She laughs, not unkindly. Even so Loki shivers. “Surely you realize yours is not the only seidr in the universe,” she- teases? He doesn’t smile. Couldn’t smile if his life depended on it. Which it may. Loki swallows. His mouth is terribly dry. “While my son still wore that hammer I could oft hear him speak with you,” she continues when he doesn’t respond. “You saved his life. He grew fond of you. But of late all has been quiet. I sometimes feel him nearby but can neither hear nor see.”

“I put the- the necklace in a jar,” Loki confesses. He’d rather not, but his tongue is somehow no more his own than his fingers are. “I did not want someone tracking us.”

“And now?”

Loki’s cheeks heat. “I got it out and touched it.”

“Of course you did.” She laughs again. “I _like_ you, Loki. My son is well?”

“Yes,” Loki tells her, finally remembering his own manners. Of course she is concerned about her son. Unlike his own, _normal_ parents do worry about their children. “Very well. His sight even begins to return.”

“Oh, that is good to hear. Have you finally told him-…?”

“That I’m Jotun?” Loki finishes, in case she was going to say something- worse. “Yes. Before he could see it for himself, even.” He manages a small laugh, finally. The weirdness of talking to someone he’s never met inside his head courtesy of a miniature hammer is starting to dissipate. “I guess you could say he wore me down.”

“He does that, doesn’t he?” Her own laugh is belly deep. “Your reassurance is a comfort to me, it is, but I have taken up enough of your time. Go back to my son now, before he wakes,” she tells Loki.

As he tries to reply Loki’s ears pop. The hammer bounces off his thigh and hits the cave floor with a faint plink. He blinks the cave back into focus around him. His heart is pounding, his mouth still ridiculously dry. It’s a long time before he stops shaking. Only then, after he’s calmed down enough to get himself some water, does he realize: Thor’s mother never told him her name.

~

“I guess you really should have this back,” Loki tells Thor over breakfast. Now that he knows what the hammer is actually for, he feels stupidly guilty keeping it from its rightful owner. Its rightful place. He scrunches up his nose. “Your mother was worried about you.”

“My _what_?” Thor’s utensils clatter to the stone. Loki only just manages to catch his bowl of fish before it follows. “How do-?” Thor coughs. “Where- how- … when did you talk to my _mother_?”

Loki can feel his face coloring again. _He grew fond of you_ , she’d told him. Fortunately the cave is fairly dark and Thor’s sight is far from recovered. “I- I touched the hammer,” he admits. “Your mother- she used it to speak to me.”

“Shit,” Thor says, loudly.

“Mm?” Loki’s- puzzled. He’d expected Thor to be mad at him for meddling, maybe. Or embarrassed. Instead, Thor looks- frantic? Yes, frantic. Like something terrible has happened.

“So now you know-…”

“She eavesdrops on you – on _us_ \- with this thing?” Loki dangles the hammer from its braided cord and forces out a laugh to break the strain. “Yes, I do, and yet I’m giving it back to you so she can do more of the same anyway.”

“She _what_?” Thor splutters. He’s wild-eyed and flailing.

Loki holds out the hammer. “When you wear it she can hear you,” he repeats, slowly. “Why? What did you think I meant?”

Thor reaches for the leather thong and grabs Loki’s hand instead. His fingers are so warm. They both flinch. “Nothing. It’s just- weird,” Thor says. “And I’m not sure I want to wear it.”

“Put it on every now and then,” Loki suggests. “Just to let her check in on you. She worries,” he says when Thor huffs. He doesn’t add “unlike my own family,” because no one cares about that anyway.

“I knew I could summon her through this,” Thor says, giving the cord a shake. The hammer dangles from his first two fingers. Loki fights down the urge to touch it again. “But I didn’t think it would work way up here. I certainly didn’t know she was spying on me through it.” He looks around, expression worried. “I promise. I didn’t mean to give this place away. I didn’t.”

“Shh.” Loki lets his own hand settle back onto Thor’s. Neither of them jumps this time. “It’s fine. She was nice enough. I don’t think she meant any ill towards me.”

Thor clears his throat. “Did she- did she mention my father?”

Loki ponders that, picking back through the conversation in his head. His memory of the whole thing has grown unusually fuzzy, unusually quickly. “No? I don’t think so. She just wanted to know how you were doing.”

“Every now and again, then,” Thor says, nodding decisively. “I’ll stow it safely away in the meantime.”

“We can put it back in the jar I’ve been using,” Loki suggests.

Thor makes a wry face. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I might hide it.”

That stings. Loki blinks. “Fine,” he says. He wouldn’t want Thor talking behind his back to Laufey, after all. “You do that.”

“It’s not personal,” Thor tries (and fails) to reassure him. “I’d just rather be the one in control of who- of who’s talking to my mother.”

Loki sniffs. “You know best, I’m sure.” He forks up a big mouthful of Thor’s meal. “Mmm.”

“Hey!” Thor grabs for the bowl and misses. The hammer clinks against the side of it. “Give me that!”

“Nuh-uh.” Loki laughs for real this time. He holds the bowl up high. “Hammer. Mother. Food. Norns, Thor, you’re so greedy.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Understanding is built on small confessions.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

It’s been weeks since Loki’s impromptu chat with Frigga and Thor is still a bit on edge. After all, he hadn’t come that close to disaster since his encounter with the creature that blinded him; when Loki had first broached the topic, the result was a wave of fear so strong Thor can still feel, smell, and taste it. Sure, Loki had made light of the whole thing. “Your mother was worried about you,” Loki’d said, like it was nothing… and then gone on to term Thor “greedy,” all in fun, as though the entire universe hadn’t just come _this close_ to imploding. Over time, Thor’s learned, Loki makes light of a lot of things. It doesn’t make them any smaller.

“What’s wrong?” Loki asks as they gather their gear. Today promises to be a nice, warm day – for Jotunheim – and the two of them are going fishing. “Please tell me you aren’t still sulking. I didn’t do it on purpose. I had no idea that _thing_ was going to connect me to your _mother_.”

Thor isn’t sulking, exactly. “You don’t understand,” he tells Loki, truthfully enough. “You don’t. You can’t. Just drop it.”

“I did,” Loki says. He smirks. Thor can _see_ him smirk. It’s prettier than it should be. _Loki_ is prettier than he should be. “I still have the mark to prove it,” Loki adds, twisting to show Thor a small, purple bruise on one thigh. “Your trinket is heavier than it appears, isn’t it?”

Though the world around Thor - especially at a distance - is still too bright and too blurry, here in the cave his near vision is actually passable now. He can distinguish texture and color. He can pick the bones from his fish without relying solely on his fingers to find them. He can see the delicate, feathered sweep of Loki’s dark lashes when Loki leans close to tease him or to steal bites of his food. Just now, he can see the long muscles in Loki’s thigh tighten as they work to keep the hammer’s mark in view. “It is no trinket,” Thor grouses, half irritated with Loki for refusing to let the topic go and half with himself for finding Loki’s blue leg so fascinating. “You’d be wise to keep that in mind.”

Loki crowds in too close and smiles. A reflected row of tiny torches flickers across his left eye. “I keep many things in mind. Tell me, does that make me wise?”

“Hardly,” Thor says. Loki _winks_ at him.

~

It’s a beautiful, sunny day and Thor misses his goggles. The pair Loki conjured (Loki insists, but Thor can’t shake the too-amusing idea of Loki’s magically swiping them straight off the face of some hapless traveler) are perfectly adequate, of course, because Loki does nothing by halves… but they don’t have the worn-in comfort of the ones he’d left back in his own cave. These slide when he sweats and rub the sensitive skin behind his ears uncomfortably. Yes, if he complained about either issue Loki would doubtless correct it. Loki might even press up against him to check the fit, neck so close that Thor could sneak a taste of smooth, blue sk-. Right. _No_. Not happening. Instead Thor plods grumpily along behind his hunting partner, muttering to himself and pushing his goggles back up the bridge of his nose every fifth or sixth snow-crunching footstep.

It gives him something to do besides watching the shift and flex of Loki’s back muscles anyway.

~

A silvery blur catches his attention. “There!” Thor points and Loki’s thrown knife flashes. Loki’s aim is perfect; the fish bobs to the surface limp and lifeless, its blood tinting the water pink around it.

Loki crooks a finger; dead fish and knife alike fly into his outstretched hands. Thor laughs. “If you can do that, why not just zap them with your seidr to start with?” he half-teases. “Seems like a lot less work.”

Loki wipes the knife clean with a handful of snow and then dries it against his loincloth. With the truth about his lineage out in the open, he’d stopped dressing against the cold in all but the worst weather. “I like the challenge,” he said, shrugging. “And I can’t always fight with just my seidr. I need to stay physically sharp as well.”

That, Thor understands. It’s the same drive that had kept him working his own muscles against whatever lay at hand through the long, dark months when he could see nothing and do nothing. “We could spar,” he suggests without thinking. “With sticks or staves,” he amends, hastily. “I fear my eyesight is not yet up to knives; one of us would be bound to lose a finger.”

“Mm. Slicing you a time or two might be satisfying,” Loki says, “but anything too easy does get boring.”

“Too easy?” Thor lands a light hit – more of a slap, really – on Loki’s ribs. “I suspect you underestimate me. No cheating,” he admonishes as Loki’s fingers glow green. “It’s not a win if it’s not taken fairly.”

Loki’s seidr bursts like a sparkling, green bubble and Thor lands hard on his ass in the drift up the riverbank. He springs to his feet, cursing and shaking the snow out from inside his tunic. Despite his best efforts some of it gets down the back of his breeches as well. “I take it back,” Loki says, laughing as Thor snarls at the cold trickling down his legs. “Easy actually can be surprisingly entertaining.”

Thor pounces.

“You’re right,” he says, as Loki struggles beneath him. Thor’s hands are cold through his gloves, between Loki’s wrists and the snow, but every last little bit of suffering is so, so _worth_ it. “I haven’t been this well entertained in ages.”

~

“That wasn’t as funny as you think it was,” Loki tells Thor, undoing his disheveled braid and shaking the snow out of his hair. He flaps the back of his loincloth. Clumps of snow fly everywhere.

Thor doesn’t even bother trying to hide his laughter. “Oh, it was,” he counters. He gropes around in the snow for his goggles, carefully not taking his eyes off of Loki for even an instant. “I like the way you look when I’m winning.”

“Winning?” Loki cocks an eyebrow. A few strands of wet hair stick to his face; others settle into the sort of big, loose curls Thor’s fingers itch to poke at. “I’d hardly call what just happened there wi-.”

“Your hair,” Thor blurts out. “It’s- it’s not usually so curly.”

Loki’s mouth snaps shut. He pulls his hair back from his face. Both hands glow faintly green and Thor braces.

When Loki shakes his hair out again, it’s straight and dry. Normal. Flawless. He glares at Thor, lips set in a stubborn line.

“That must come in very handy,” Thor says carefully.

“It does,” Loki says. He sniffs. “Why so surprised? Your own mother is a sorcerer.”

 _Mother_. Thor can feel a muscle under his eye twitch. “She is,” he agrees, “but in Asgard people like to wear their hair wavy.” He takes a deep breath. Loki is still frowning angrily. “Wait. Did I say something wrong?”

Loki looks away. “Most of my people do not have hair,” he says to the frozen landscape somewhere over Thor’s right shoulder. “When I still lived in the capital mine was seen as- a frill. A liability. The more it fluffed, the more teasing I took for it. And they weren’t wrong, not exactly. That’s why I always keep it braided.”

Thor takes another deep breath, through his mouth this time. “I think it’s lovely.”

“The better to pin me with?” This time Loki stares Thor down.

“No!” Thor blinks. Maybe? “That’s not what I meant at all.”

Loki’s eyes are not the flat blood red they’d appeared when Thor had first begun to be able to see them. Now that his vision is working more properly those red eyes have all the tonal variation his do; they’re a bright riot of reds, maroons, browns, and blacks where his own are all the cooler colors of the rainbow.

Thor shakes his head. Keeping focused can be such a struggle, “You lived in Utgard?”

“No,” Loki huffs, “I sprang out of a rock in this cave one day and just never bothered leaving.”

“I didn’t think-,” Thor starts.

“Of course you didn’t,” Loki cuts in. “Yes, I was born in Utgard. My brothers and I grew up there. They stayed, I didn’t.”

“You liked it better out here,” Thor suggests, hopeful.

Loki shrugs. “I did. I do. But it wouldn’t matter. I’m a runt. I wasn’t useful. I wasn’t welcome.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, taking note of the strain in Loki’s shoulders, neck, and jaw. “You seem pretty useful to me.”

“Right,” Loki says. “Because you’re such a great judge of character.”

Thor _is_ good at that, actually. He’s always considered it one of his better talents. “My mother liked you,” he counters.

Loki’s eyes widen; Thor tenses reflexively. “When did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t,” Thor says, a little smugly. He hasn’t dared take up the hammer since Loki’s recent experience with it. Which isn’t the point here; he now has all the confirmation he needs anyway. “You did.”

They end up rolling in the snow together this time.

As they’re shaking themselves dry – again – Loki laughs. “Maybe your idea of sticks was better.”

Thor holds up the fish. “Let’s get this home,” he suggests instead. “I’m hungry.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little unexpected exploring. Some gathering, too, but no real hunting.
> 
>  
> 
> _Apologies for any errors. I have conjunctivitis and everything is blurry!_

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

Thor pulls up short and looks around. He’s worked up a good sweat and his legs are burning pleasantly; he’ll be cold if he stops too long, but even so he doesn’t want to miss anything. Now that he can for the most part see again – really see, from the strands of hair worked free of Loki’s braid to the snowflakes blowing across the windswept ground – he’s been making it a point to stop every now and then and do what he’s here to do: that is, study his surroundings.

Loki’d muttered and sputtered at first, but nowadays he just keeps heading off towards wherever they’re going and lets Thor hurry to catch up with him.

This time, Thor doesn’t. He just stands there gaping at the _trees_ just below the ridge’s edge. They’re perhaps waist high at most, pushed by the constant wind into low, twisting spikes. Thor blinks, because this can’t be real and he has to be imagining- well, all of it. He adjusts his goggles and looks again. No, the trees are definitely there. They are. Really.

“Loki,” he shouts, hands cupped around his mouth. “LOKI!”

Up ahead, almost out of sight as the ridge sinks away, the shimmering blue-black dot that is Loki stops its bobbing travels.

Thor waves his arms frantically. _He knows where they are_. He knows where _this_ is. “Come back here,” he yells, waving again. The even sway of Loki’s returning walk turns to a trot and then a run.

“Are you okay?” Loki skids to a stop, eyes wide and snow kicking up all around him. His expression grows increasingly confused and then annoyed as Thor beams. “Out with it,” Loki finally says, sounding quite cross. “What’s going on? I thought you’d hurt yourself.” He starts to turn away. “We have things to _do_ , Thor. We’re not just out here playing.” 

“This is it,” Thor tells Loki. “The place! The cave where I’d been staying was just over there,” he explains, pointing down the hill, “right underneath the tree line.”

“The cave.” Loki brightens. “Your cave.” He nudges Thor’s shoulder. “Lead on, then. Let’s see if it’s uninhabited presently.”

~

Thor shivers in the aftermath of a powerful surge of _nostalgia_. The mouth of the cave – his cave - looks exactly the way he remembers, as though he’d just left home a few minutes ago but had needed to turn back for something he’d stupidly forgotten. Well, it looks _almost_ exactly the same… his heavily traveled path through the snow is long gone. The drift across the entryway is up to mid-thigh, smooth and perfect, the rise and fall of its gentle slope unbroken. “Seidr first,” Loki warns quietly, shooting out a hand to stop him as Thor moves towards the entryway. “There are things in this realm that fly, you know, and still others with enough sense to stay in out of the weather.”

“Fine,” Thor concedes. Loki’s right. He’s been gone all this time; another few minutes committed to ensuring their safety isn’t going to hurt anyone. He watches carefully as Loki’s hands dance in the air, surrounded by the faintest greenish shimmer. Nothing changes.

Nothing moves.

As far as Thor can tell, everything’s fine. He turns to Loki.

Apparently it isn’t.

“Hm,” Loki says, and it sounds like an accusation. He folds his arms across his chest and eyes Thor. Thor tries smiling at him. That doesn’t seem to help matters.

“What?” Thor asks. He can only tolerate standing there being inspected for so long before he has to _do_ something. “Is someone – some _thing_ \- in there?”

“Why don’t _you_ tell _me_?” Loki asks, one eyebrow cocked. It’s an expression Thor sees far too often, now that he can see at all. Sometimes he almost wants to kiss it right off Loki’s smug face.

Now isn’t one of those times. “I’m not sure what you mean,” Thor says. He isn’t. “I lived there alone. No traveling companions, no friends. No pets,” he adds, just in case it’s a small creature Loki’s sensed. “Just me. Me and no one. Me and nothing.”

“Nothing _magical_ , then?” Loki prompts. The muscles in one blue forearm shift distractingly as he taps his fingers against his other elbow.

Magical. Thor thinks. “The hammer amulet,” he says, “but I brought just the one, and it’s back at our cave. Healing stones, maybe?” All that buys him from Loki are pursed lips and a shaken head. Thor racks his brain. Clothing. Goggles. Knives. Apples. _Apples_. “Apples!” he blurts out, excited to have solved the mystery. “I had Idunn’s apples. In slices. Dried. They’re magical. Kind of?”

Loki’s frown only deepens. “I kept up with my studies, Thor. Those apples of Idunn’s are only available to royalty. To _gods_. Tell me again… who are you?”

_Shit_. “That’s not- not true.” Thor stumbles over his own words. “Not- not exactly.”

He can tell from Loki’s expression that he isn’t making sufficient headway. “What did you say your mother does again?” Loki asks him.

_Shit shit shit_. “I don’t think I did,” Thor says, trying to find his way back to calm. “Just that she’s a sorcerer – a sorceress, really… but you know that. She’s a weaver. It’s just apples,” he presses, trying to distract them both. “Can we go in now?”

“A weaver,” Loki repeats. Thor winces. He can practically see the gears in Loki’s head turning. “Hm,” Loki hums again. “Sure, let’s go in. After all, I do want to see those apples you almost didn’t mention.”

“I’d forgotten about them,” Thor explains as he ducks to follow Loki into the cave.

Loki laughs. “Forgotten? Sure. Let it go,” he warns. “You really aren’t doing yourself any favors, believe me.”

~

Inside the cave things are much as Thor’d left them. Aside from the remains of some small animal’s winter nest – a soft tangle of sticks, fur, and feathers, stained dark from a season’s use – underneath Thor’s still-neatly-folded tent, he can’t find a single sign of intrusion.

His pots still lean against small stones near the long-cold fire pit, their bottoms dusted with snow and trails of now-frozen water from the crack high above them.

Both the healing stones (still in their leather pouch) and apple slices (frozen, their parchment brittle) are right where they should be: tucked into cracks far up the cave wall, too high for his winter guest and her children to forage. And there! There are his favorite goggles, too, safely nestled against the bag of stones.

Thor’s spare cloak hangs where it always did, from a jutting bit of stone. His good winter clothes are still stacked neatly beside it.

The place smells cold and crisp. Cold, crisp, and empty.

Loki lets go of the seidr-fueled torch he’s been using. It floats up to the low ceiling and bursts with a soft hiss into dozens of tiny witch lights. He bends to inspect the edging on Thor’s cape and sighs. “You know what? I’m starting to seriously question your concept of _nobody_.”

There’s nothing particularly special about the cape. Frigga makes them for everyone. Yes, there are protective charms woven in. Their use and meaning, though, your average young scholar – even one born in Asgard and well-trained in Asgardian seidr - wouldn’t know. “That’s funny,” Thor says, even though it’s really somewhere between odd and terrifying. “I was just thinking the exact same thing about yours.”

That works _just like magic_. Loki springs back to full height and develops a sudden, overwhelming interest in the bag of healing stones. “How do these work,” he asks Thor, holding one up to the closest light. “Are there accompanying incantations? Can they heal _anything_?” He flips and catches it, as though it were one of his tasty fish. “What do they do to scars?”

On one hand, Thor would love to dig into Loki’s sudden change in demeanor. On the other, though, that would circle them right back around to the topic of ancestry... which is quite possible the very last thing Thor wants to talk about.

“I don’t know quite _how_ they work,” he admits, choice made (like there even was one), “only that they do. They knit broken bones, crushed organs, ripped muscle, and torn skin. They drive out infection, neutralize toxins, and hasten healing. Can they heal anything, though? No,” he continues, sadly, thinking of fallen comrades, of fellow soldiers lost to war. “They can’t undo death. And I can’t say I’ve ever tried one on a scar.” He’s gotten a lot of scars over the years. Most of the time he kind of likes them. “That doesn’t mean we couldn’t sometime.”

“Neutralize toxins,” Loki echoes. He swallows a bit too loudly. “Could they have healed your eyes, then?”

Thor hadn’t really thought about that. “Maybe?” It’s irrelevant now; he’s nearly better. That, and it isn’t worth dwelling upon anyway.

“We should have come here sooner,” Loki whispers.

“Couldn’t,” Thor reminds Loki, light and cheery. “We didn’t know where _here_ was.” He busies himself loading his clothing, stones, and apples into his pack. The goggles he hooks over the neck of his tunic; the knives, he tucks into his boot tops. He and Loki don’t need the pans – Loki’s stone dishes work fine and demand a lot less careful handling – and he’d rather leave the tent in case something wants to overwinter under it again next season. That, and they can always come back for things they leave anyway… now that they know how to get here. “All set,” he tells Loki, patting the pack. “You had things to do, remember? What was that again? Oh, right… we’re not just out here playing.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drinking and admitting things, although perhaps not (all) the things that need admitting.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

“That’s not even _true_ , Thor.” Loki rolls his eyes. A full three-quarters of the universe’s problems start with gossip and rumor. “You’ve _been_ on the plains. You _know_ we can grow hardy fruits and grains here on Jotunheim, and we take our share of honey. There’s more to life than your stupid flagons of ale.” Honestly. To listen to anyone from Asgard talk – and Loki did more than his share of _that_ as a child, sneaking out of his (foster) home after bedtime to hide in the darkness of Utgard’s far more exciting shadows – the only thing that makes life worth living is found in a barrel and served by the great, sloppy jugful. “On top of which,” he adds, cutting Thor off at the very start of what would doubtless otherwise be a long and tedious counterargument, “I am a sorcerer. Anything we can’t easily make, I steal. It’s that simple.”

“Right,” Thor says, laughing. He’s so sure of himself. It’s so annoying. “You keep saying that, and yet the only proof I’ve ever seen is the hammer you stole _from me_.”

“I didn’t _steal_ your stupid charm.” Loki stamps a foot in frustration. He doesn’t like being teased, not even over trivial things like trinkets and alcohol. “I didn’t know what it was, only that it had magic to it, so I stowed it safely away. Now I _could_ steal one of _these_ ,” he mocks, snapping his fingers and showing Thor the shriveled apple slice cupped neatly in his hand. “It might be worth it.” Thor growls. “But then you wouldn’t like that,” Loki challenges, inching the fruit nearer and nearer his own lips, “would you?”

Thor grabs Loki’s wrist, eyes wide and cheeks flushed. “You can’t eat that.”

“Why?” Loki asks. “Will it make me immortal?”

“It will make you _visible_ ,” Thor hisses. “To m- to the Asgardian royal family. To _Heimdall_.”

As best he can tell Loki’s been visible to Heimdall all his life, but Thor certainly doesn’t need to know that. Loki lets Thor take the apple slice from his palm. His wrist feels strangely naked when Thor lets go of it and stomps away.

“I still don’t believe you,” Thor goads once the apple is safely back in its parchment. He flops down on a pile of furs near the fire.

Loki shuts his eyes for a moment to really concentrate. Where had he put that bottle of- _there_! He holds it out by its neck, its silver filigree tarnished and silk tassel yellowed with age. “What’s _this_ , then?”

“Norns!” Thor gasps. “Where did you get that?”

Loki smiles. Despite their reputation he’s found over the years that the Alfheim delegates are ridiculously careless with their most precious belongings. So much so that their realm must be quite the paradise, both to have such things and to not notice them missing. “It pays to keep an eye on one’s belongings when I am around,” he says, rather than answering. “Sadly, I didn’t think to take the matching goblets. A thing of such beauty deserves more than our humble stone bowls, doesn’t it?”

Thor plucks the bottle from Loki’s hand and carefully works the stopper free. He narrows his eyes and wrinkles his nose at the smell of it. “Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “We can always drink it straight from its fancy bottle.” He doesn’t, though; he just holds it, eyeing Loki cautiously.

Oh, Thor. “It’s not poison,” Loki grouses, rolling his eyes (again) and laughing. He curls up in the nest of furs next to Thor. “I promise. Give it to me.” When Thor does as requested Loki takes a big swig, just to prove he can. His eyes tear up from the burn. “There.” He coughs, despite trying hard not to. “See? Just drink. Not poison.”

“Oh, my,” Thor chokes out, after taking the bottle from Loki and following his (bad, bad) example. “I’m thinking this may be both drink _and_ poison.” 

~

They’ve had no more than half the bottle – on full stomachs, no less – but they’re clearly both woefully out of practice. Thor is finding everything either of them says hilarious, judging from his endless, bubbling laughter. Loki is feeling- _warm_. Warm and a bit dizzy.

“Here, give me that,” Thor says, reaching for the bottle as Loki, laughing himself now, struggles to keep it just out of reach. “We need to pace ourselves. If we keep going like this we’ll be sicker than sick tomorrow.” Thor catches Loki by the wrist again. A bit of drink sloshes out onto Loki’s hand as Thor works the bottle free of his clinging fingers. Loki catches the liquid with his tongue; it’s a shame to waste it. He laughs again as Thor freezes, bottle halfway to the stone floor.

“You’re very attractive,” Thor says. At least, that’s what it sounds like; they’re both slurring a bit now. He sets the bottle down with a musical clunk.

Loki leans closer to get a better look. “I’m blue,” he says. It feels very important. He hiccups and covers it with a small cough. “I could say the same,” he adds, studying Thor’s rough golden stubble and soft-looking pink lips intently. He wonders if Thor would taste of fish. “But I won’t. Just because I’m a runt” – the words tumble out, echoes of past tavern conversations Loki barely remembers – “it doesn’t mean that I’m easy.”

“You are blue,” Thor agrees. It sounds more like “you elbow” and Loki can’t help but giggle. They both do. Are. The air this close to Thor is so hot. Loki’s cheeks are burning. “But…” Thor brings a finger up and shakes it in Loki’s face. “Gods, you are anything but easy.”

Loki hiccups again. “Oops,” he says. He was raised better. “What,” he says, very precisely, as he leans even closer, “are you going to do about that?”

Thor tugs Loki’s wrist a little too sharply; Loki loses every last bit of balance and topples over, one leg in the air and chest pressed against Thor’s arm. “I think…,” Thor says, working his arm free and wrapping it around Loki’s back just below the shoulders. Thor’s arm is warm and heavy and Loki never wants it anywhere else in the universe again. “I think I will kiss you.”

“The Jotnar aren’t really u- unisex, you know,” Loki blurts out, pushing back a little as Thor tries to pull him closer. “It’s a miss. A miff. A _myth_ ,” he spits out. His tongue feels slow and uncooperative.

“Shh,” Thor says. His eyes search Loki’s face, or maybe he can’t remember how to focus. Either.

Loki takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes, and presses forward. His lips end up more next to Thor’s mouth than on it.

It’s a mistake easily enough corrected. He does. They do.

Thor’s lips are every bit as soft as they look. All that stubble will leave him roughed up, doubtless, but Loki hasn’t kissed anyone in years and _all_ he feels right now is _hungry_.

They’re drunk and clumsy. It takes three tries – with knocked teeth and pinched lips and an elbow to Thor’s gut that ends in a soft grunt – before they find an angle that works and can really lose themselves in it. Then, it’s- it’s wonderful.

When they come up for air Thor lets Loki push him down into the furs and sit astride him before pulling Loki back down to press their fronts and mouths together.

Loki shivers as Thor’s fingers drag down his back, bump-bump-bumping along his spine, and then back up his ribs in the same slow crawl. He shifts. Thor’s cock pokes into Loki’s hip, just alongside his loincloth, through those Norns-cursed worn leggings. “Mm,” Loki hums, rolling his hips just a little, and then “wha?” as Thor abruptly takes him by the upper arms and pushes up to sitting. He squawks as Thor – too big, too strong – all-too-effectively separates the two of them.

“Shh,” Thor says again. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he insists over Loki’s garbled protest. The words run together. Loki blinks. They still do. “It’s just… you’re really drunk. _We’re_ really drunk. I don’t want-.”

“Mm?” Loki blinks again at the beautiful, golden man in front of him. Too _far_ in front of him. Isn’t this what people do?

“It’s not what _I_ do,” Thor corrects, gently, and Loki winces: oh, he’d said that aloud.

But you can have everything. And, shit, he’s said _that_ aloud too.

“If I really can,” Thor says. Norns, thank the gods, he’s gone somewhere else with it and missed the point Loki should never have been making. “I can still have whatever I want to tomorrow.” He laughs. “Or the next day, when we can move without hoping death will save us from our mighty sorrows.” He’s enunciating so clearly, brow wrinkled with the strain of it.

Loki jerks his arms free and half flops, half falls backwards into the furs. “I’m too tired,” he says, trying to sound both clear and disaffected and probably managing neither, “to fuck anyways.”

Thor laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard in his life. Loki pouts up at the ceiling, body still too hot and throbbing. “Come on,” Thor says, struggling to stand, “let’s wash up and get some sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

They kiss a little more as they stumble to the washbasin. The last thing Loki remembers thinking is this: who cares about a few rocks? It’s fine to spend the night here. Perfectly fine.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The day after can be rougher than then night before.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

The first thing Loki notices: the air around him is cold. Really cold. Not outdoor, frozen-water cold, true, but a lot colder than his bed in the cave should be. Before he can even begin to make sense of his, he notices three more things in no particular order: he feels absolutely terrible, it’s so bright even through his eyelids that his eyes are _on fire_ , and he hurts everywhere. He struggles to sit up, which is a huge mistake; he’s not sure which direction up is to start with and his stomach churns ominously. Fine. He can take a hint. Forget it. Loki flops back into his furs-

-and cracks his shoulder and head against something rock-hard instead.

It’s like a explosion in his skull.

Someone howls, ear-splitting and terrible. Loki claps a hand over his mouth. The sound is muffled. He _shuts_ his mouth and it stops completely. Huh. He keeps his fingers clamped tightly in place just to be on the safe side. He can’t risk that sort of noise again, and the whole arrangement may come in handy if his stomach gets a little too overambitious. With his free hand he feels around for his furs and finds- nothing. Well, not nothing, exactly; his fingers touch- cold stone and more cold stone. Under his body, rising above him. He shifts a little, carefully more mindful of head and stomach now, and reaches out to his other side. Rock rock rock _huh_ ; his fingers hit leather. _Warm_ leather. Loki prods cautiously, then harder.

The warm leather groans. “Norns,” it rasps, sounding rather like Thor but too loud and too scratchy. “I am so fucking hung over.”

_Hung over_. Huh. _Right_. Loki cracks one eye open and then the other. With a few blinks and an eye-rub the grey-black column rising overhead resolves itself into base of the washbasin. He’s still holding his mouth. Beneath his palm his face stings. The ground lurches. “I’m going to be ill,” he croaks to the cave at large, urgently hauling himself up with the lip of the washbasin.

He thinks he mostly even vomits where he means to.

~

There’s a warm hand on his shoulder and a cool cloth on his forehead. “There, there,” Thor soothes. “Drink some of this if you can. Try? For me? Just a little?” The water feels good in Loki’s mouth, but his body seems to have forgotten how to swallow. In the end he rolls over and just lets it run everywhere.

~

Loki’s dimly aware that he’s dreaming. He must be. He and Thor are kissing by the fire. The place is pleasantly warm. Neither of them reeks of sweat or stale drink. It’s erotic and exciting.

None of it is real.

Loki forces himself awake. He’s curled up in his furs, Thor’s hand in his hair. He’s still half in the dream. He clears his throat. “How are you even alive?” he croaks at Thor, Thor who is somehow sitting upright and humming softly. It makes no sense. “I feel far, far too awful to be dead,” Loki grumbles. “I must still be dying.”

“I’m bigger than you,” Thor says. His voice reverberates inside Loki’s head painfully. “And apparently I am in better practice.” He laughs, barely more than a breath and it’s still too loud. “Never fear, I won’t let it happen again. I’ll keep a closer eye on you next time. Here, take this and hold it against your forehead.” Thor gently wraps Loki’s fingers around a warm, smooth stone. Magic seeps out of it, soft and comforting. “Back to sleep now,” Thor tells Loki firmly. Arguing is far too much work. There’s nothing to do but obey him.

Loki is hot and cold, happy and sad. He wants to return to his dream. He wants none of this to have ever happened. “Both of us?” he suggests, not sure why he’s pleading. His voice doesn’t echo around his brain this time. The healing stone is already helping.

“Of course,” Thor promises, shifting closer. As Loki’s eyelids fall shut, he could _almost_ swear he hears Thor add “gladly.”

~

He’s melting. His skin is on fire. When he touches his own arm, everything sloughs wetly away like so much molten metal. Loki tries to scream but his voice is faint and muffled. It feels as if his mouth is full of hair.

Thor’s hair.

Loki jerks awake, shaking and spitting. He’s cocooned in his furs and wrapped all around Thor… Thor, who’s warm as a fire and snoring gently. Loki is absolutely drenched in sweat. He doesn’t remember the last time he reeked this thoroughly. Overall he feels better, though, and – while he’s not exactly hungry – the mere thought of food is no longer enough to leave him retching.

He works carefully free of both sleeping Thor and the bedding. He’s disgusting himself; he simply cannot stand to be this dirty a moment longer.

Seidr is faster but a bath feels necessary. Loki sinks into the water with a happy sigh and sets himself to scrubbing.

~

“Do you think you can eat something?”

Loki jumps. He squawks, an undignified bleat he wants to take back before he’s even finished making it. “Sorry,” Thor offers just as Loki huffs out “you startled me!” He starts to stand up but drops back into the tub with a splash as it hits him: things happened, and he’s naked. He swallows; in response his stomach growls. “I think so,” he tells Thor. “Just give me a minute to dry off and, um, put something on. Wait, do you want to bathe while I throw a meal together?”

Thor, as it turns out, does. Two simple spells leave the water fresh and clear for him. Loki hurries into a clean loincloth. He must have slept a week. Dinner needs making.

~

“I had a nice time last night,” Thor says, finally breaking the awkward silence that’s hovered over them since they woke up and finally settled in at mealtime.

Loki doesn’t think he’s quite ready to talk about- anything. His lips are puffy, his face still stings a little. “We had _TOO_ nice a time,” he corrects, laughing carefully. He winces in anticipation but the pain in his head is almost gone now. “So nice, I’m still not quite over it.”

Thor’s cheerful demeanor wilts a bit. “Is that all you remember?” he asks. “The drinking?”

Hm. Loki could lie. Doing so might buy him time to get his feelings sorted. It might also set the two of them back weeks or more. Might set them back permanently. He takes a deep breath. “No,” he says softly. “I remember much more than that.” He remembers pulling Thor from an icy death. Remembers hunting and playing together. Remembers the plush softness of Thor’s lips and the insistent hardness of-. He remembers a lot. He’d like to make the last of it- more than a memory. “So.” Another deep breath. Thor is but a visitor here, a scholar on a mission. They’ve made a good life for themselves. Things can’t go on like this forever. “Where,” Loki asks, not certain what he wants to hear (except that’s a lie; of course he knows the One Right Answer) “does it leave us?”

Thor stops eating and looks at Loki, one last scoop of stew hovering halfway between bowl and mouth. Loki’s cheeks heat as Thor studies him. “I hope it leaves us ready to try that again,” Thor says. “Not the drinking, I mean. The rest of it.”

His face is bright red to Loki’s glowing purple. “The kissing?” Loki prompts, just to see him fidget. There’s ample room for both of them to be embarrassed here.

“The kissing,” Thor agrees, all the while looking more and more uncomfortable. “And the rest of it.”

Loki scoots a little closer. He’d like to _try that again_ as well. He’d especially like not to get sat back on his ass and stopped the next time. He sets a hand on the closer of two legging-clad thighs, smiling at the happy hum it pulls from Thor. Enjoying it almost enough to not feel nervous.

Almost.

Thor coughs. “Let’s finish dinner first, shall we?”

That’s not going to work. “Even though I’m blue?” Loki tries, hiding his own discomfort behind a smirk. It’s still hard to poke fun at himself, even when he hopes it will get him something.

“Yes, silly.” Thor grins.

That’s better. So much so, in fact, that it’s worth it.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More sex and less politics a peaceable cave doth ensure?
> 
> _Sorry for any bad editing. Normally I have the place to myself while writing and can read aloud, but not today._

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

It was barely a month ago that they’d drunk themselves sick as dogs, and yet in some ways Thor can barely remember what their life had been like beforehand. He remembers the hunting and fishing, of course, and the cooking. He even remembers the talking. What he finds difficult to call to mind is how they’d filled the time in between those things… now that they no longer have to struggle to fill it.

He’s not even sure they _did_ struggle. It just seems as though they must have. All those long hours, and nothing to do with them besides mope and pine.

Not anymore. Once they finally got started, it seems, there’s no stopping them.

He and Loki share a- well, it’s actually more a _nest_ than a bed, these days. Sometimes in the night Thor still startles awake to find himself wrapped around Loki’s lean, hard body, clinging as though his very survival depends upon their every cell touching. More and more, though, their new connection feels good. Happy. Normal. He wakes to find Loki nestled against his chest and smiles. He pulls Loki closer still, until his nose is full of the minty-herbal scent of Loki’s scalp, and sinks peacefully back into sleep.

During their waking hours they can no longer keep away from one another. The first few days after they’d discovered (well, admitted) their mutual feelings, things had been a little strained and awkward. They’d fumbled their way through the most idiotic conversations, asking before kissing and laughing in turn at each other’s hopeless clumsiness. Once they’d adjusted to the change in their relationship, though, things had gone nothing but better between them.

Thor can no longer watch Loki cook dinner without sidling up to him and pressing warm lips just below his ear. The effect is instant and transforming, even when Loki’s mind had been completely elsewhere only moments earlier. They’ve ruined more than one meal that way, suddenly so busy exploring one another’s mouths that Loki’d let the cooking bowl tip and poured whatever he’d been making right into the flames. Thor would gladly hunt twice as much forever, if that’s what it takes to make up for it.

Loki, Thor has found – and is enjoying continuing to find, so much so that he hopes he never runs out of new things to learn – is possessing of _the most sensitive_ neck imaginable. Each and every one of Thor’s attentions, no matter how simple or how fleeting, has been received like an eight-course banquet or fistfuls of fine jewelry.

Soft kisses lavished upon the knobs of Loki’s spine, starting with the most prominent bump at the crest of Loki’s shoulders and ending at the base of the skull, elicit the very nicest of full-body shivers. Little nips up the long, blue column of Loki’s throat are even better, if that’s possible; Loki has never withstood more than four – and, yes, Thor most definitely _is_ counting; he’s doing his utmost (not to get lost in his own arousal, but instead) to catalogue each response, to truly understand what Loki most enjoys – without flinging strong arms over Thor’s shoulders and climbing him like a tree.

Gentle presses of lips down the center of Loki’s chest and on to the rippling planes of his stomach below leave him – head thrashing back and forth, hair out of its braid and whipping everywhere – mewling helplessly. When Thor changes course near Loki’s navel and turns to kiss the point of one hip (and then the other), Loki’s hands fist in the furs beneath them.

And when Thor hovers just above the hard arch of Loki’s beautiful, deep purple penis, Loki’s hands tangle in Thor’s hair instead.

The first time they’d tried anything more, the first time Thor’d let Loki pull him down until his mouth touched skin, Loki had briefly lost the ability to self-regulate and had turned into one of those frozen treats the cooks give children. Thor’s own muffled, startled bark had been drowned out by Loki’s screech. Just after that Loki’s jerked-up knee had smacked Thor in the chest and effectively separated them. It had taken a good hour of “I’m so sorry” and stifled laughter before they could get back to business, and by then the mood had (temporarily, very temporarily) left them.

Now Thor is more careful. He takes his time getting where he’s hoping they’re going, breathing into the pain as Loki jerks roughly at his hair. Rather than letting himself be yanked down onto Loki in one quick go, Thor catches hold of Loki’s wrists and takes his time worshiping Loki’s cock with feather-light licks and kisses until he’s sure Loki will be able to maintain a reasonable temperature. Only then does he finally, sloppily wet lips with tongue and suck Loki down.

~

Thor gives of himself easily. Right from the start his hands and lips fly to Loki’s skin like iron to a lodestone. Loki, despite falling reassuringly apart under Thor’s ministrations from the very beginning, turns out to need quite a bit more time to feel comfortable exploring. They don’t talk much about it. The most he can get out of Loki without really pressing the matter – which he doesn’t want to do – is that Jotun runts don’t have many options when it comes to intimacy, on top of which Loki has spent most of adulthood alone.

It hardly constitutes a problem. Thor is in no hurry. While Loki slowly acclimates to touching Thor – beyond hungry kisses that leave no doubt in Thor’s mind that his own feelings are happily reciprocated, and cool hands in his hair as he sucks Loki off – Thor keeps himself amply well-occupied touching Loki.

Little by little, Loki and casual touch become better (re)acquainted. Thor finds himself waking some nights facing the other way, snuggled deep into their furs with Loki pressed nape to toes along the long expanse of his back. Loki’s fingers dig into Thor’s shoulders as their mouths slide together. Loki holds Thor’s hand as they sit quietly after dinner, thumb tracing delicate patterns across the hollow of Thor’s palm. Later on, naked in their nest of furs, cool hands map the hills and valleys of Thor’s chest as Loki marvels aloud at the tiny golden hairs there.

Later still Thor fights the urge to buck into Loki’s mouth. While he’s not sure he’s wholly successful, no one ends up frozen and he counts it as a win.

~

“I’ve seen pictures of two Aes men fucking,” Loki blurts out in the middle of their midday meal. It comes out of nowhere – they’d been talking first about the afternoon’s hunt, then chewing silently away without speaking at all – and Thor chokes on his own saliva.

“This is what your library holds?” Thor rasps once he’s mostly done coughing. “No wonder you speak so fondly of your studies.” He’s teasing, trying to lighten the sudden heaviness that’s settled between them.

Loki doesn’t laugh. “I’m certain that’s what they were doing,” he says, frowning down at his bowl of meat. His face is purple. “But how- I don’t understand- where do they put it?”

Where do you think, Thor catches himself just in time and doesn’t reply. This sort of thing hasn’t bothered him in ages. Still, if the way they’re burning is any indication, his own cheeks must be as bright as Loki’s. “You’ve never-,” he tries, “with your own kind?”

“The few Jotun runts I knew,” Loki whispers, “were female.”

Oh. _Oh_. What had started out as a bit of fun suddenly takes on the weight of grave responsibility. “It’s hard to explain,” Thor says carefully, “but maybe, if you’d like, someday I could show you.”


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even in plain sight the truth can be hard to see.

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

“Loki!” While the heavy darkness that settles around him comes as less of a shock this time the uncomfortable sense of vertigo is worse, if anything. “Are you well? Is something wrong?”

“I kissed your son,” Loki blurts out, sharp and defiant. “And not just the once, either.”

Thor’s mother laughs. “That hardly comes as bad news,” she says “for I can only imagine it pleased him greatly.”

Loki frowns into the dark emptiness, face warm and hands shaking. “What? Seriously? You’re not upset about it?”

“Why should I be?” she asks. “I want little more than for my dear son to be happy.”

It’s an odd choice of words, and he can’t help but call her on it. “Little, then? Not _nothing_?”

She laughs again, but when she speaks her tone is not as light. “Alas, my duties extend far beyond my own family. Much as I try to put my loved ones first, sometimes doing so simply isn’t possible.”

_Duty_. Loki flips back through everything he’s learned, frantically. He’s right on the edge of something; he can _feel_ it. “Right,” he tries. “Thor says you’re a weaver.”

“He told you that, did he?”

Loki nods at nothing. “In fairness, I did rather push for an answer.”

“Of course you did. It’s true,” she says, and Loki can hear the smile in her voice. “On my loom, I weave the future.”

He can’t help himself. “Seriously??” he squawks, again. He claps his free hand – the one not wound tight around the tiny hammer – over his mouth. “Sorry,” he mumbles through his fingers once he has himself mostly back under control. “It’s just such an odd-…”

“…thing to say?” she finishes, which isn’t what he meant at all. “Sometimes the truth _is_ odd. There’s no helping it. So… my son is well, then?”

The abrupt change of topic is easier, and yet harder. “He is,” Loki says, hands and hammer settled back in his lap now. “Better than ever. He tells me his sight is probably 80% of what it should be.” His next words catch in his throat. “When are you expecting him home in Asgard?”

“As long as he is well, of course,” she says evenly, “not until he has finished his mission.”

“His mission,” Loki echoes. He waits uncomfortably long for her to elaborate; she doesn’t. Of course. “Which is…?” he prompts, finally.

She- hums. It’s not a laugh, exactly. “That? That is something you should be asking him and not me.”

“I _have_ ,” Loki grumbles. The whole topic frustrates him, especially of late. “He just says he’s here to study.” All Thor has been studying recently is the taste of Loki’s mouth and the texture of his skin. He can hardly say _that_ to Thor’s mother.

“And so he is,” she agrees, mildly. “He needs a far broader understanding of your realm than the one at which he had arrived over the course of his schooling.”

Personally, Loki thinks Thor’s understanding of Jotunheim is just differently narrow now. “And why is that?” he asks, still hoping to glean something helpful.

“Ah, Prince Loki,” she says, “that is another thing-.”

Loki misses the rest of what she was about to tell him because he jumps and drops the little hammer. The cave blinks back into view as the thing skitters away, its metal head clinking brightly against the floor.

He’s still shaking when he finally finds it and tucks it carefully back into its jar.

~

Prince Loki. _Prince_ Loki. Loki turns Thor’s mother’s words around and around in his spinning head. How does she know? The more he thinks about their conversation, the less sense it makes to him.

~

“I told your mother I kissed you,” Loki announces as they’re fishing for dinner. Their feet dangle over the bank, not quite touching the icy water below. Just around the next bend is Loki’s favorite waterfall.

Thor chokes on a bit of saliva. “You _what_?” he rasps. “Why? And when?” He shakes his head. “ _Why_ do you keep sneaking off to speak with my mother?”

“I didn’t-,” Loki starts, instantly on the defensive, but Thor’s not wrong: he _did_ sneak off, hiding behind the wash basin while Thor was outside beating their bedding clean. “It was just this one time,” he says instead. “One time _more_. Earlier. And I don’t know why,” he huffs. He kind of doesn’t. “I felt like she should know?” He flips fresh bait into the water with a loud plop. Not like he’s going to catch any fish _that_ way. Fuck it. The earlier conversation is eating him alive and he has to _know_. “Does she talk to Heimdall?” The Asgardian gatekeeper comes to him in his dreams… has done, as long as Loki can remember. Longer, probably.

Thor looks absolutely, completely shocked for the count of three heartbeats, before his expression closes off and his eyes narrow. “What did she tell you?” he says, so quietly that Loki can barely hear him over the water.

“Nothing,” Loki snaps. “Just that I should be asking _you_ my questions. Because _that_ gets me _so far_ , doesn’t it?”

They glare at each other, breathing heavily. Eventually Thor clears his throat and looks away. “Yes,” he admits. “Yes, she talks to Heimdall. Why do you ask?”

“ _That’s_ how she knows who I am,” Loki mutters, under his breath.

It’s not soft enough. “What did you say?” Thor asks. He looks- wound up, even well on his way furious. “She _knows who you are_? What does _that_ mean? Fine,” he spits as Loki scowls at him. “When we get back to the cave I’ll just find my hammer and _ask_ her.”

“Oh, _that’s_ mature,” Loki snipes, to hide the frantic rush of terror he’s suddenly feeling.

“And you’re just jealous because you don’t have a mother.”

“That’s not true.” Loki’s ears hear Thor speaking, but it takes a few seconds for the message to sink in. Tears spring to his eyes, hot against cool skin. “You know what? You’re right,” he hisses. “I shouldn’t have bothered telling her anyway, because we won’t be doing any more of-.”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Thor cuts in. His face flushes, glowing pink and wobbly through Loki’s tears. “I don’t know why I did. I’m so sorry.”

Thor _does_ sound sorry, which is worse somehow. The dam breaks. Water streams down Loki’s cheeks. He catches the rod between his knees and hides his wet face in his hands. Thor reaches out to pull him close.

After a halfhearted struggle, mostly for show, Loki lets him.

~

Thor’s heartbeat is steady, loud, and comforting. Long after he’s done crying, thighs protesting the strain of keeping the pole steady, Loki rests in the cradle of Thor’s strong arms and tries his best to avoid thinking about anything.

“My mother is the queen of Asgard, you know,” Thor whispers into Loki’s hair.

Loki snorts and pushes away. “Right. And my father is the king of Jotunheim.”

~

“Did you mean what you said earlier, about not kissing again?” Thor runs a warm finger up and down the inside of Loki’s forearm. The pressure is perfect: not enough of to hurt, too much to tickle. He’d like nothing more than to have Thor continue. Forever.

Loki doesn’t say that, of course. Instead he wrinkles his nose in mock disgust. “Why?” he asks. Thor’s finger is still moving. It’s hard not to purr. “If I did, would you miss it?”

Thor’s face falls. “I really am sorry about what I said earlier,” he tells Loki, again. “Whatever you decide, I deserve it.”

That’s even better. Loki grins. “If you want my forgiveness, convince me you deserve it.”

Believe it or not Thor does, and then some.

~

It hits Loki hours later, when he’s lying awake long after bedtime, that Thor’s seemingly flippant remark up by the waterfall that afternoon might actually be true. It would explain a lot: the seidr, the hammer, Heimdall, the fabric-making… and even Thor’s mother’s odd comment about weaving the future. And it’s not like _he’d_ countered – sarcastic delivery notwithstanding – with a lie. Maybe they _were_ both born to be kings, in a manner of speaking.

“Was that true?” he asks the snoring, golden heap beside him.

“Mm?” Thor grunts, eyes still closed. He rolls over, pulls Loki close, and buries his face in Loki’s hair. “Mm. Of course I love you.”


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little talking finally happens. Loki goes through a little emotional ping-pong.
> 
> _NOTE: it may be two weeks before I update. I have an obligation at noon next Sunday that could very well leave me no time for writing. If so, I'll be back with an update the following week. Promise!_

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

Loki blinks. His ears must be playing tricks on him, because that simply cannot just have happened. “Wait, you what?” He wriggles half out from under Thor’s arm and flails around until they’re facing each other. Thor is more or less awake now, nose scrunched and eyes half-lidded.

“Oh,” Thor says. “Shit. Did I say that out load?” Even in the near darkness of the nighttime cave Loki can see Thor’s cheeks redden. “Shit,” Thor says again, louder this time. “Well, I do. I love you.” Thor bites his lip. “There you have it. Is that okay?” he asks when Loki doesn’t answer.

“Go back to sleep,” Loki says instead, shoving Thor’s chest with both hands. Which, of course, does pretty much nothing. He doesn’t know if it’s okay. Doesn’t know what he wants.

“Loki?” Thor’s features settle into a worried frown. He comes up on one elbow and tries to pet Loki’s hair. “I shouldn’t have-… I’m sorry.”

That’s _not_ what Loki wants; this much, he _is_ sure of. “You mean it?” he asks. “Because if you’re teasing me I swear I will-.”

“Stop.” Thor’s warm, warm palm slides down Loki’s face to cup his chin. “I wasn’t teasing. I do mean it. We don’t have to talk about it ever again if it bothers you, though.” Thor smothers a yawn and Loki fights not to cry, out of nowhere. “Sorry,” Thor says again. “Tired. Sleepy.”

“Mm.” Loki is exhausted, too. Lying awake ruminating is not the least bit restful. “No,” he tries, “it’s okay.” He thinks it could be. “I just- I wasn’t expecting that. Any of it. It’s a lot to think through.”

Thor smiles, a bit sheepishly. “I certainly could have picked a better time and place to announce it,” he says. “Come here. Let’s go back to sleep. We can talk in the morning, assuming you actually want to.”

Loki scoots and rolls and scoots some more, until he’s backed up to Thor’s toasty hot front again and the furs are no longer in a hopeless tangle. He carefully pretends he’s falling asleep, right up until Thor’s breathing evens out and he no longer has to. Only then does he let himself sigh.

_Thor says he loves me_. Loki’s not sure what to make of that. For starters, he isn’t sure anyone has ever loved him before. Not really. Not without reasonable expectation of gain. His foster dam had expressed the expected sentiment, or course, and not infrequently; once he was old enough to wonder why, Loki’d found himself unable to stop wondering if it wasn’t the stipend his care guaranteed that she really cherished. Well, he _had_ stopped eventually… once he was certain.

His teachers had appreciated his intelligence (his attitude, rather less so). On occasion he’d been applauded for his seidr, his quick wit, and his hardiness. That’s not love, though. Neither was the camaraderie he’d shared with some of the other Jotun runts – all female, as he’d told Thor – in the rough years between leaving his foster home behind and abandoning Utgard completely. Friendship every now and then. Admiration, sometimes. Tolerance… often.

Never love, though; not even the warm caring he gets from Thor’s mother.

_Who may be the queen of Asgard_. Right. There’s _that_ disturbing thought back again, thank you very little.

He might just be loved by the next king of the Realm Eternal.

He may _love_ the next king of the Realm Eternal, and isn’t that a cruel irony if ever there was one? _As if_ there’s any place for a blue Jotun runt in Asgard’s golden halls. Funny. Not funny. Loki stretches, yawning.

Thor shifts in his sleep and tugs Loki even closer.

It’s probably not long afterwards that Loki’s brain loses the struggle and gives in to his tired, warm body. Even so, it feels like forever.

~

“Hi.”

Thor’s face hovers just out of kissing distance. It isn’t smiling. Loki frowns blearily in return. “Hi,” he says. “Is everything okay?” Thor looks worried. While only one torch is lit, the cave smells rather more like lunch than breakfast.

“I was just going to ask you the same,” Thor tells Loki. He’s squatting beside the pile of furs, one hand hovering just above Loki’s hair. When he ultimately pulls back without touching; Loki frowns harder in puzzled consternation. “It’s not like you to sleep well past me, and ever since I got up to get dressed you’ve been tossing and turning,” Thor goes on. “You’ve had me worried. Are you not well?”

Loki rubs his eyes. “What time is it?” He remembers struggling endlessly to sleep, and-.

“Past midday,” Thor tells him, “if the angle of the sun is any indication.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” Loki explains. “Right up until I did, apparently. You went up to the cave mouth?”

“I did,” Thor echoes, softly. “I needed to do some thinking.”

Oh. _Oh_. The events of last night come rushing in, so fast they leave Loki dizzy. He groans. “Me too. In the middle of the night. Hence why I…”

“…slept all day,” Thor finishes. “Sorry.” He does touch Loki’s hair, finally: he tucks a flyaway bit behind Loki’s ear. His fingers are warm. They feel nice. Loki’s cheeks burn.

Loki coughs. Which doesn’t help; his chest is still impossibly tight. “What did you decide?” he asks, trying to sound brightly neutral (which isn’t easy when his heart is fighting to crawl out of his mouth and flop around on the cold stone, dying).

“Decide?” The little ridge between Thor’s brows that hadn’t ever quite left deepens. “I wasn’t trying to decide anything.” He smiles. It looks about as fake as Loki’s own expression feels. “I just wanted to get my head in order.” He shakes the head in question. It looks every bit as nice as it always does. “My mother must have known who you were – who you are – all along, you know.”

“She what, when?” Loki’s mouth says before his brain can stop it. Because it’s true, of course. If she is who Thor says she is, she truly does weave the future. And setting the future means knowing the past… before it happens, even. She must have realized Thor would meet him here. Would be injured, potentially grievously. Would fall in love. And yet she had sent her beloved son into the frozen wilds anyway. “Why didn’t she keep you safe? Why would she take that kind of risk with you?”

“It’s not like that,” Thor assures Loki, quickly. “She _documents_ the future. Only the Norns can _change_ it.”

“So it’s all true, then. What you told me. Yesterday, anyway,” Loki amends. If this is true now, other things clearly haven’t been. _I’m nobody_. Not that he isn’t just as guilty.

“Mm-hm.” Thor nods. He still looks worried. Nervous, maybe. “I am Thor Odinson. Frigga is my mother.” He swallows, loudly. “And I do love you. There. I think that’s all of it.”

Loki purses his lips and watches as Thor looks increasingly uncomfortable. “And I am one of Laufey’s spawn,” he says a bit harshly. “Not one destined for anything but martyrdom, I fear. I hope you didn’t come here expecting a big dowry.”

Thor flinches, much as though Loki had slapped him. It feels better than it probably should, here in the midst of Loki’s stupid resentment. “You’re certainly within your rights not to believe me,” Thor says, “and in your place I might well do the same, but I truly knew none of this until recently. Really recently,” he adds with a dry laugh. “I’ve had my suspicions from time to time that you were – you knew – more than you were letting on, but I had no idea you were descended from royalty. I was sent here to develop a more balanced understanding of Jotunheim. That’s what my family told me. Just like _I_ told you.”

That’s true enough. Loki’s not quite ready to concede regardless. “You _told_ me you were nobody,” he points out, peevishly

“As did you, me,” Thor reminds him. “I was blind, and in captivity. I feared for my life should you learn the truth.”

It’s Loki’s turn to wince. “Seriously?” he asks, though he knows everything Thor’s just said is justified. Had he wanted Thor dead, or worse, he could easily have made it happen. In fact, he could have turned and walked away that very first night without ever making contact. Everything would have been over before it had begun. The beasts would have made quick work of Thor’s corpse come spring.

“Seriously.” Thor sighs. “Look, if you want me to take everything back and pretend it never happened I c-.”

That’s _definitely_ not what Loki wants. “You actually love me?”

Thor’s expression softens. “Yes,” he says, with undeniable certainty. “Of course I do.”

Loki looks at the furs still pooled in his lap. “I might love you back,” he whispers.

Thor leans in to plant a soft kiss on Loki’s forehead. “I was hoping you might,” he says, just as quietly.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor tries to push past (through?) what he sees as Loki's anxious overthinking.

~~o~~  
Thor  
~~o~~

“How are your eyes?” Loki peers at Thor over a bowlful of something crunchy and green and sharply bitter, face scrunched in worried-looking concentration. It’s vegetable season. Thor now knows what that means after spending so much time here: in a place with such a harsh climate you take what the ground gives you and find a way to like it.

Thor knows he will like _this_ stuff a lot better when it is gone.

He twists to look at the cave around them, at the soft purple glow of the fire reflected in the gentle curve of his bowl and at the red-orange flashes and sparkles where Loki’s necklaces catch the torchlight. Now that (Thor’s hesitant to say _all_ , but) many of their secrets are out in the open, Loki’s manner of (un)dress has waxed rather more princely: thin neck chains dripping with a blue-white jewel that’s like nothing Thor’s seen in Asgard, stacks of delicate bracelets up each graceful arm. It’s nice. Thor hasn’t said so, for fear of making things (once again) awkward between them, but he does enjoy running his finger up Loki’s wrist and listening to the fine metal jingle.

“Better,” he says. There essentially isn’t anything he can’t see well these days. “The glare outside still tires them, but that’s probably normal.” He shrugs. “Sun on snow. It’s so bright here.” He rubs his eyes gently. “Nothing hurts, though. I think I’m fine.”

Thor gives his eyes one last good rub. When he blinks to clear the spots from his vision Loki is frowning. On the next blink it’s all gone; Loki’s normally-animated features are impassive and cold, blank as the faces of the statues lining Asgard’s Walk of Heroes. “Loki?” Thor blinks again, a bit frantically. It doesn’t change anything. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Loki says, too quickly. He scoops up a mouthful of greens and winces. “You’re right, you know,” he complains through his food. “These really do taste rather awful.”

~

Today is _not_ sunny. When Thor and Loki head out to snare themselves some dinner, the sky overhead is a dull grey-white and it’s snowing lightly. Even though the overall effect is a bit gloomy, especially following on the heels of a few strained hours in the cave (during which Loki had continued to insist everything was _fine_ even though every last bit of body language – and the way the whole thing had escalated into a brief shouting match – screamed that _nothing was fine in any way_ ), Thor is glad for the chance to tuck his goggles away and really enjoy the scenery.

There’s a quiet, awesome beauty here… a _majesty_ so different from the riotous color and noise that characterizes- no, _defines_ , Asgard.

_Asgard_. Of course. No _wonder_ Loki is distant and sulky. “Hold up,” Thor calls ahead. They’ve fought plenty; he knows how it usually goes. That’s why he’s a little surprised when Loki actual stops and waits for him.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Loki’s aloof expression is still glued firmly in place, but the tight pinching around his eyes and mouth give away how hard he’s working to maintain it. He frowns. “It’s the greens, isn’t it? They’ve made you ill.”

As much as those things taste like poison, they haven’t. Thor smiles. “I’m well. I just want to talk to you.”

Loki’s eyes narrow. “You stopped for that?”

Thor pounces. “Yes, and to hug you.”

“Brute!” Loki wriggles and kicks. “Unhand me, or I’ll-.”

Thor holds on all the tighter. “I know, I know. You’ll hurt me.” He gathers Loki closer still, until he can bury his face in the curve of a blue shoulder. “Please. Just listen. Just for a minute.”

Loki doesn’t agree – in fact, he doesn’t speak at all, which rarely happens – but he does stop struggling. Thor takes it as a sign that he’s good to continue.

“I think I know what troubles you,” he starts, adding “no, please, hear me out,” over Loki’s angry scoffing. “Now that I’m all but fully recovered, you think I am going to leave this place – leave _you_ \- and head home to Asgard.” He understands, he does. He’s spent several turns of the moon thinking about this, mulling over feelings and duties and the odd role in the whole mess played by his mother. “You do,” he insists as Loki grumbles. “You think I’m going to walk away and that- it troubles you.”

“You really are full of yourself,” Loki grits out, voice a little muffled by Thor’s hair. He tries again to push away. Once more, Thor doesn’t let him.

“I am,” Thor agrees, going for cheerfully. “Or, rather, I was. Believe it or not, these day’s I’m markedly less so. But I _am_ serious, Loki. I’m not leaving Jotunheim until I’ve accomplished the whole of my mission.” He kisses the side of Loki’s neck, fighting back a laugh as Loki shivers. “My _scholarly_ mission,” he adds, doing his best to imitate his parents. He really has given this a lot of thought, enough so that the first bits of a plan have started settling into place. “Which now encompasses identifying a future that continues to include you.”

Loki stiffens in Thor’s- well, it’s somewhere between _clutch_ and _embrace_. “And why would you think I’d care about that?” Loki asks, coldly.

“Because you _think you love me too_ ,” Thor reminds, unwilling to be dissuaded. “You’re afraid. It’s okay,” he adds hastily as Loki recommences struggling. “We both are. Ouch!,” he yells as Loki twists and bites his neck, hard. He can’t help but let go. “Norns, Loki!” He rubs his sore skin, half expecting to find blood. There isn’t any.

“You don’t know- anything,” Loki spits, backing away. “You don’t know of what you speak. You’re just- naïve. _Stupid_. Ridiculous!” He’s well out of reach now, arms crossed over his chest and legs spread.

Thor is reminded so much of himself as a child that – despite the seriousness of the situation – he once again has to fight to keep from smiling. “ _You’re_ smart,” he points out rather than arguing. “I think you can help me.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Thor,” Loki snarls, “and don’t treat me like one. You’re destined to be king of Asgard. Asgard, the most powerful of the nine realms. You’re going to go home, all right; you’ll go home and forget all of this ever existed.”

_Never_. No matter what happens, and Thor is determined to make _what_ something good, he will never forget the beauty of this place or the time he’s spent here. He can’t even fathom forgetting Loki. “Let’s finish our hunt,” he says instead. Loki is far too upset to listen to reason, and Thor gets it. He worries too, even with the full weight of his parents’ power behind him. “I’m getting cold. As usual.”

“I would melt in Asgard,” Loki says under his breath, barely loud enough for Thor to hear him.

You’re a sorcerer; you can all but time-travel, Thor thinks. Maintaining a place in both realms is far from impossible. “Bear with me,” he says instead. They can work something out. He knows it. “Hunt now.” He marches forward, forcing Loki to back away or get squeezed again. “Talk later.”

Loki spins and stomps off into the fresh snow, muttering and cursing.

~

“Mm.” Loki rubs his stomach. “So full. So sleepy.” He’s smiling, unlike earlier, but the subtle tightness around his eyes is still there.

Thor inches closer and rests a hand carefully on Loki’s hip. He’s comfortably warm now, as is the cave; it doesn’t really matter that Loki is a bit chilly. “Tell me again why you left Utgard,” Thor says. He gets better answers (to most things) now that they aren’t stuck hiding so much from one another.

Loki sighs heavily. “Really, Thor? I’m digesting.”

Thor squeezes Loki’s hip. “Talking’s never kept you from digesting before, has it?”

“Oh, you have no idea.” Loki sighs again. “I wasn’t raised by my parents,” he says flatly. That- hurts, really. Thor fights to stay perfectly still, to let Loki finish. “Once I came of age I had no reason to stay.”

“So they don’t know where you are?” Thor thinks about leaving his family to come here. He can’t picture just up and disappearing, can’t picture no one caring if he did.

“I have no idea,” Loki says. His face looks even more pinched now. “I can’t say it’s something I’ve paid much mind to.”


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreams and their aftermath (Thor has such a bad case of feeeeeelings)...

~~o~~  
Loki  
~~o~~

_The very first thing Loki notices, as the Bifrost deposits him feet-first on Asgard’s famed bridge amidst a swirling riot of rainbow-colored sparks, is the overpowering heat. It’s hot here – HOT, even – and the air is so thick and sticky that he can’t help recoiling. His lungs don’t know what to do with themselves; it’s like breathing so much water. He can already feel himself perspiring profusely – contrary to popular belief Jotuns can and do sweat; they just rarely have reason to – and he hasn’t even taken five steps yet._

_The second thing that catches his eye is the people. So many of them, all golden-haired and ruddy-cheeked and bundled head-to-toe in metal, bright cloth, and dyed leather. Some wear soft clothes, others armor. Everyone, much like Thor, is tall and broad and comely._

_They are also all, down to the last individual, staring._

_Not just looking, features schooled into polite interest the way diplomats’ often are. No, these Aes are flat-out gawking as thought they’ve never seen anything like Loki before._

_“Why is everyone gaping at me that way?” Loki asks Thor out of the side of his mouth, careful to keep his head up and face forward. People are acting so peculiar. It’s unnerving. You can never, Loki knows, be too cautious in the face of crowd behavior._

_Thor has the nerve to laugh outright. Of course he would be comfortable here, surrounded by his (father’s) loyal subjects. “It’s not often they see someone naked.”_

_“What?” Loki squawks, jerking to a halt mid-stride. His free foot slaps the ground too loudly. All self-protective court behavior lost in an instant, Loki looks himself up and down in puzzled panic. “I am not!” He isn’t. He’s wearing a nice, white fur loincloth (with increasing regret; surely plain leather could only be cooler) that extends a good hand’s breadth past his privates, along with the many bejeweled gold bangles and chains befitting his station. His actual station, not the one he normally assumes in his own realm. His heavy gold torc is right where he left it, too, spanning his chest below the collar-bones almost shoulder-to-shoulder. “What are you talking about?!”_

_Behind him someone laughs. Loki bristles. “It’s because I’m blue, isn’t it? Because I’m Jotun. Your people find me unworthy of respect. I swear I’m-.”_

_“Seriously, no.” Thor cuts Loki off mid-rant. “It really is because you’re naked. By comparison,” he amends. “Look at them, will you? It’s winter here. They’re cold. They’re covered. You, by contrast, are dressed as though you’re heading to the baths.”_

_Loki forces himself to look up, away from his own blue, sweating self and out towards the crowd gathered ‘round them. The Aes are indeed thoroughly covered, he has to grant Thor that much, although how anyone can be cold in this sweatbox is utterly beyond him. Each and every person sports leggings, tunics, overtunics, cloaks or coats. Boots. There are even a few wearing thick leather gloves, and as many sports hats as helmets. He purses his lips and scans their faces. The people nearest him look- flustered, actually. Not derisive. He tries a smile. The woman- girl, really, barely out of childhood, directly in front of him actually blushes. “Then why did you let me come here like this?” he hisses at Thor._

_“Why?” Thor laughs again. He is enjoying this far too much. Loki will make him suffer for it later. “Because I knew you would find this place sweltering.”_

_That’s fair, and yet it isn’t. “So you let me make a fool of myself?” Loki asks. “What were you thinking? I could have worn a cloak or something.”_

_“You own exactly nothing that doesn’t leave you looking like- like a courtesan,” Thor counters. Loki can feel his own face heating (further, but not from this sun this time) in response. “Plus, you’re shapely. Why not be proud of it?”_

_“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m HERE ON A DIPLOMATIC VISIT??” Loki’s voice rings out over the gathered crowd. Even Thor looks shocked by his outburst. Loki himself is – mere moments too late, as always – absolutely mortified. “You know what,” he says, chin up and voice as steady as a lifetime of adversity can make it, “this was a bad idea. Fuck it. Let’s just go home.”_

_Thor takes him by the shoulders and shakes him, not so gently. “What’s the matter with you?” Thor asks as Loki tries to pull free. “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”_

“What’s wrong?! I just made an ass of myself in front of your entire assembled citizenry,” Loki tries to say sharply, but his voice is rough and raising it makes him cough. Thor’s hands are too tight on his shoulders. Everything is dark around him, suddenly. He can’t make any sense of it.

“Loki?” Thor says softly. He sounds- concerned. “Loki, wake up. What is it? You were shouting. Were you having a nightmare?”

“I- I don’t- maybe?” Loki blinks. He shakes Thor off – easily, now – and rubs his eyes. Gone are the brightly-far-too-dressed Aes along with Asgard’s ridiculous heat and baking sunshine. The oppressive humidity. The loincloth and jewels. He’s merely tangled in their sleeping furs, overwarm and sweaty. _Norns_. He barely manages a weak smile. “Oh,” he tells Thor, “I hope so.”

~

“You dreamed we went to Asgard?” Thor says for the fourth or fifth time now. He can’t get past that part, clearly.

“Yes.” Loki says, again. He pokes at his soup. “Between you and all that bedding, I was roasting. Asgard must have been the only stupidly hot place my brain could come up with.”

Thor grins. “And I told you everyone liked you because you were sexy?”

“Yes. _NO_!” Loki glares at Thor. “Now you’re just making fun of me.”

Thor actually looks chastened, finally. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I am. It’s just- I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to _get_ you to visit.”

“Well, after that, you can be certain I _won’t_ ,” Loki gripes, but doesn’t really mean it. He likes the idea of visiting. Of meeting Thor’s mother. He wants to see the palace firsthand. Wants to stroll through its famously beautiful gardens. “It’s not really worth talking about anyway, is it?” he says instead. There’s no gain in caving prematurely. “You’ve still got that mission of yours to finish.”

Thor studies his own bowl like it’s the most fascinating thing in the whole nine realms. “I do,” he admits, “and it’s one I’m committed to finishing… but that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about the future.”

Loki’s been trying hard not to dwell on what’s coming, honestly. He’d rather not think about- about Thor leaving. He’s always prided himself on being strong and independent and isn’t fond of poring over the (steadily-increasing body of) evidence that hints at how he, well, might not be. He would really rather not parade his weak spots in front of the universe, even if his universe presently comprises just a few rabbits, some fish, and Thor. “Which future would that be?” he says; he’s not really asking. “The one where you go back to Asgard, become king, and forget everything you’ve learned here?”

To his credit – and Loki’s surprise(d, unexpected satisfaction) – Thor looks both shocked and sad. “No!” he assures Loki. “Absolutely not. That future will never happen.”

“Right.” Loki makes a wry face. “Never.”

Thor sets his own soup aside and scoots closer. He gently lifts Loki’s bowl and places it on the floor beside his own. “Loki, look at me.” His fingers are soup-warm as he steers Loki’s chin. “Yes, I have responsibilities in Asgard. Big, big ones. And I’m not stupid… I know over time they will bring huge changes. But I hope my responsibilities never come between us. And if they do,” he pushes on as Loki tries to interrupt, tries to argue, “I assure you I will never, ever forget you. Or this place.” He marks his words with little taps, alongside Loki’s jaw. “Or the time I’ve spent here. Coming to Jotunheim was a shock, and I did expect to hate it. But I was wrong, Loki. That’s not what’s happened.” He gives Loki’s chin a squeeze that causes tears to well up despite its gentleness. “Instead I’ve found a beautiful, wild place… and you.”

Loki hopes he succeeds at sniffing _quietly_. “I found _you_ , actually. Remember?”

“No, of course not; I was unconscious,” Thor says just as Loki adds “rhetorical.”

“Give me my soup,” Loki demands. He needs a break from talking (listening) so he can keep (okay, regain) his cool. “Now.” He gives Thor a shove. Okay, a nudge, probably. “Hand it over,” he orders. “I’m hungry.”


	37. ** PSA - ON HIATUS - THIS IS NOT A CHAPTER **

For those of you who do not follow me on tumblr, I wanted to let you know that I am putting this story on temporary hiatus. I've just had some things happen in real life that are going to be taking all the time and mental energy I don't have to devote to my paying job (and then some) for an indeterminate amount of time. I'm hoping things will settle down enough within a couple of months that I can get back to this, but I can't promise it will be that fast and I can't stick to an update schedule.

Once I can get back to a semi-stable, happier place I promise I will come back to this and finish it for you. Thank you for being patient.


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